
FT MEADE 

GenCol 1 









































SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS 






SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS 


by y 

GEORGE MANVILLE FENN 

ASSISTED BY 

COMPTON READE, F. ARCHER, AND OTHERS 



NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 
156 Fifth Avenue 


t 



Copyright, 1896 

BY 

NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


CHAPTER I. 

HOW WE GOT THERE. 

“But what are we going for?” 

If he had not been so much of a gentleman, I 
should have said that the half-closing of his left 
eye and its rapid reopening had been a wink; as it 
was, we will say it was not. The next moment, 
he had thrown himself back in his chair, smiled, 
and said, quietly, “Not yet, captain — not yet. 
I’ll tell you by-and-by. At present it is my secret. 
Waiter, fill these glasses again!” 

“ But look here, ” I said, as soon as the waiter 
had done his duty, “you can’t sail right up into 
the Arctic circle without a crew.” 

“No,” he said, shaking his head; “but you will 
go?” 

“Well — yes,” I said; “I don’t mind. She’s a 
smart steamer, and well found. I’ll take her.” 

He rose solemnly from his chair, crossed to my 
side, and shook hands, before wabbling back and 

1 


2 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


sitting down, filling the r old-fashioned Windsor 
armchair so very full, that I wondered it didn’t 
come to pieces. 

I don’t want to be personal, but he certainly was 
the fattest man I ever saw, and the most active. 
The Claimant was nothing to him. He looked 
perfectly stupid, as he sat there with a great wat- 
tle under his chin, which came all over his white 
neckerchief and clean-frilled shirt; and as he 
talked to you, he kept spinning round the great 
bunch of gold seals at the end of a watered silk 
ribbon, that hung over his glossy black trousers, 
while the huge flaps of his black bob-tail coat hung 
over the sides of the chair. 

“ You’ll be my captain, then?” he said. 

“Yes, sir, I’m ready,” I replied; “but about 
the crew. Their first question will be, ‘Is it whale 
cr seal?’” 

“Tell them — tell them,” he said, musing, — “tell 
them seal , and we’ll do a bit of sealing on the voy- 
age; but, my dear Captain Cookson, the real object 
of our trip is at present under seal. You under- 
stand?” 

I nodded. 

“Then get a good, staunch, picked crew, and 
don’t spare for expense. You’ll want good first 
and second mates. Shall I engage them?” 

“Oh, no, thanky, sir,” I said, hastily; “I ” 

“Captain Cookson here?” said a voice I knew, 
and Abram Bostock thrust his head just inside the 
door. “Oh, beg pardon, sir!” 

“Come in, Abram!” I said, eagerly. 

“Begging the gentleman’s pardon,” he said, 
wiping a little brown juice out of each corner of 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


3 


his mouth; “I only wanted a word with you, 
skipper. Binny Scudds is outside.” 

“Bring him in, then!” I said, quickly. 

Abram looked from one to the other, rubbed his 
hollow, sallow cheeks, upon which there was not a 
particle of hair, and then his body swayed about 
as if, being so thin, the draught of the door was 
blowing him, — “ Bring him in?” he said. 

“To be sure!” I exclaimed. 

Tall, thin, Abram Bostock stared at my compan- 
ion for a moment, and then backed out, to return 
directly with my old bos’en, Abinadab Scudds, 
half leading, half dragging him; and no sooner 
was the mahogany-faced old salt inside the door, 
and caught sight of the stranger, than he slewed 
round, and was half outside before Abram growled 
out, “Avast there!” collared him, and bringing him 
back, closed the door; when Scudds growled out 
something that seemed to come from somewhere 
below his waistband, and then, thoroughly cap- 
tured, he stood, rolling his one eye from one to 
the other, and began to rub his shaggy head, end- 
ing by an old habit of his — namely, taking out a 
piece of rope, and beginning to unlay it. 

“Begging the gentleman’s pardon,” said Abram, 
as he feasted on his goodly proportions, “ I come 
to tell you, skipper, as they wants a cap’n and 
mates for the Gladiator.” 

“But you have not engaged?” I said, anxiously. 

Scudds growled, bear-fashion, and shook his 
head. 

“Because here’s a chance for you, my lads!” I 
said. “ I have engaged with Doctor — Doctor ” 

“ Curley, ” said my stout friend. 


4 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“With Doctor Curley, to command that smart 
steamer lying in the Greenland Dock, and we go 
up north. Will you come?” 

“What arter?” growled Scudds, tearing at his 
piece of rope. 

“ Seal, ” I said, with a look at the doctor. 
“What do you say, Bostock?” 

“Oh, I’m game, if you’re going, skipper!” he 
said, staring at the doctor. 

“And you, Scudds?” 

“ Same as Abram, ” growled Abinadab — Binny 
we called him, for short. 

“This is lucky, doctor!” I said; “for our two 
friends here will soon get a good crew together. 
Plenty of men will be glad to join the vessel they 
sail in!” 

“Don’t you believe him, sir!” said Abram, pol- 
ishing away at his cheek. “It’s acause the skip- 
per there, Capen Cookson’s going, as they’d 
come!” 

“Ah! Well, never mind about that,” said the 
doctor, smiling. “ So long as I’ve a good crew go- 
ing with me, I don’t care what induces them.” 

“ But you ain’t a-going, sir?” says Abram, look- 
ing harder than ever at our owner. 

“Indeed, but I am, my man!” replied the doc- 
tor. “Why not?” 

“Oh, nothing, sir!” says Abram, looking as con- 
fused as a great girl, while he stared harder than 
ever at the doctor. 

“Now, what on earth are you thinking about?” 
said the doctor, making an effort to cross his legs, 
but failing, on account of the tight fit in the chair. 

“Well, sir,” says Abram Bostock, slowly, 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


5 


“ meaning no offence, I was a-wishing I were as fat 
as you are!” 

“ Oh, lor’ !” groaned Sc.udds. And his one eye 
rolled tremendously. 

“My good friend,” exclaimed the doctor, start- 
ing up a little way, but subsiding again, for he had 
raised the chair with him, as if he had been a her- 
mit-crab and it was his shell, — “my good friend, 
I’d give five thousand pounds to be as thin as 
you!” 

“Hor — hor — hor — hor!” roared Scudds, burst- 
ing into a tremendous laugh. “I say, skipper, 
what a wuntier he’d be if we took to the boats!” 

“Hush!” I exclaimed. 

“What does he mean?” cried the doctor; “that 
I should sink the boat?” 

“No,” growled Scudds. “Long pork!” 

“Long pork!” said the doctor. 

And Abram clapped his hands over his mouth, 
to stay his laughter. 

“Yes,” growled Scudds, grinning, and showing 
a wonderfully white set of teeth; “long pork — 
long pig — human! Don’t you see? You’d keep a 
boat’s crew for a fortnit, if they were hard up and 
star vin ’ . Hor — hor — h or — hor ! ” 

“My good man,” cried the doctor, shuddering, 
“that’s a very good joke, no doubt, and very fun- 
ny, only don’t make it about me again ; try it on 
somebody else! Such a dreadfully anthropopha- 
gistic idea!” 

“Which?” growled Scudds. 

“Well, then, cannibal idea,” said the doctor, 
shuddering again. 

“Lor’, sir, I meant no harm,” said Scudds. 


6 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


holding out his great, heavy paw, which the doctor 
shook. “I’ve often made it about long, thin, Ab- 
ram Borstick, there; only when I makes it about 
him, I allers puts it t’other way, and says he’d 
starve a boat’s crew for a fortnit. Don’t you see?” 

“Oh, yes, I see!” said the doctor, nodding. 

“And it’s the only joke he ever does make, sir,” 
says Abram. 

“Right,” growled Scudds. 

“ I didn’t mean no offence, sir, about your 
going, neither,” said Abram, respectfully. “Of 
course it’ll be a great advantage to have a doctor 
on board. You air a doctor, sir?” 

“ Yes,” said our stout employer, laughing till his 
cheeks wabbled. “ I can cure anything from a 
frost-bite to a flea-bite; but I’m not an M.D.” 

“No; of course not, sir,” says Abram, nodding 
his head sagely. 

“I mean, sir, not a doctor of medicine.” 

“Good job, too,” growled Scudds. “Yah! I 
hates physic!” and he looked about for somewhere 
to spit, ending by opening the room door, and dis- 
posing of his tobacco-juice on the mat. 

“Well, then, sir,” I said, rising, “here are our 
first and second mates, and I’ll get together a crew 
of sixteen men in a few days, and meet you every 
morning on board.” 

“ My sarvice to you, sir, ” said Abram, touching 
his forehead. 

“And mine,” growled Scudds. 

I was close beside the doctor now, and held the 
chair as he rose, otherwise he would have lifted it 
with him. Then we took our leave, and I walked 
down Hull Street with my two old shipmates. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 7 

“ Where did you pick up the skipper?” growled 
Scudds. 

“Well,” I said, “he’s been dodging me about 
for a week, and been mighty civil, so much so, that 
I thought he wanted to try the confidence dodge 
on me, of trusting one another with money; but 
it’s all right, my lads, we’ve found a good ship 
and owner, and the pay’s good, so we’ll sign the 
articles to-morrow, and get to work.” 

I needn’t tell you all that took place during the 
next month ; how we got coal on board, and stores, 
and casks for oil, or whatever we might get; had 
her cabins lined to keep them warm; fitted np 
stoves; had plenty of extra canvas and spars, ice 
anchors, a couple of sledges; plenty of ammuni- 
tion, and provisions enough for two years. Last 
of all came on board a whole lot of strange-look- 
ing mahogany cases, which the doctor had brought 
. very carefully under his own superintendence, and 
then, one fine morning in June, we steamed 
out of the Humber, and away we went to the 
North, with the doctor going about the deck like 
an active tub, rubbing his hands, and smiling at 
everybody. 

Everything was soon ship-shape; boats ready for 
work, fur coats and boots served out to the men 
against they were wanted, and I was very busy one 
morning getting some of the tackle a little better 
stowed, when the doctor waddled up to me, and 
tapped me on the shoulder. 

I turned round, and he led the way into the 
cabin, sat down, and pointed to a seat. 

“Now, Captain Cookson, ” he said, “I think it’s 
time to tell you about my plans. ” 


8 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“ If you please, sir, ” I said, “ that is if it suits 
you.” 

“ Well,” he said, “you are now sailing to the 
North.” 

“ Yes, sir, according to your orders, right away 
for Spitzbergen.” 

“And do you know what for?” 

“Discovery of some kind, sir, I suppose.” 

“You are right, Captain; I mean to discover 
the North Pole.” 

“With all my heart, sir,” I said. 

“At least,” he said, “I mean to try. If I fail, 
I shall still be able to make a good many scientific 
discoveries, so that the voyage won’t be for noth- 

iiig.” 

“No, sir,” I said. 

“ It has been one of the dreams of my life to go 
upon a scientific vo}*age up in the North ; but the 
Admiralty wouldn’t listen to me. They had the 
notion that I was not a suitable man for the expe- 
dition; when all the while Nature has expressly 
designed me for the purpose. See how she has 
clothed me with adipose tissue.” 

“With what, sir?” 

“Fat, man — fat! like she does the bears, and 
whales, and Eskimo. While you men will be 
shivering in your fur coats, I shall be quite warm 
without. Well, what we have to do is to take ad- 
vantage of every open channel when we reach the 
ice, and push forward due North. If the men get 
discontented, we will keep promising them extra 
pay, and What’s the matter?” 

“Skipper, sir!” growled Scudds, who had just 
thrust his head in at the cabin door. “ Wanted on 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


9 


deck, sir — regular mutinee. Tom Brown’s come up 
from below, and says as there’s a ghost in the 
hold!” 

“ Where — where?” cried the doctor, excitedly, 
as he waddled out of the cabin, thoroughly earning 
the nickname the men had bestowed upon him of 
The Penguin. “ Captain, get one of the casks ready 
for a specimen. I have never seen a ghost!” 

‘‘Ain’t he a rum beggar, skipper?” whispered 
Scudds, as we followed him on deck, where a knot 
of the crew were standing round one of the fore- 
mast men, Tom Brown, whose face was covered 
with perspiration, his hair being plastered down 
upon his forehead. 

“Well, where’s the ghost, my man?” said the 
doctor. 

“Down in the hold, sir. You can hear him 
a-groaning!” 

The doctor led the way down the open hatch; 
and I followed, to give him a push down, if he 
stuck fast, finding that there was something in the 
man’s alarm, for from out of the darkness came, 
every now and then, a deep, sighing groan. 

“Why, there’s some one there!” cried the doctor. 

“Here, quick, half a dozen of you!” I shouted, 
for an idea had just struck me ; and, getting a lan- 
tern, I crept over some of the stores to where stood 
a row of casks, to one of which I traced the voice. 

“Hallo!” I cried, tapping the cask; when there 
came a rustling noise from inside, and a tap or two 
seemed given by a hand. 

“Found anything?” said the doctor, who had 
stuck fast between the stores and the deck. 

“It’s a stowaway, I think,” I answered; and, 


10 


SEVEN" FROZEN" BAILORS. 


creeping back, with the groans becoming more fre- 
quent, I gave orders, had some of the hatches taken 
off farther along the deck, and just over where the 
cask lay; and then, by means of some strong 
tackle, we hauled the cask out on deck, to find it 
only partly headed, and from out of it half slipped, 
half crawled, a pale, thin, ghastly looking young 
fellow, of about four or five-and-twenty. 

“Why, it’s Smith!” exclaimed the doctor. 

“Water — food!” gasped the poor wretch, lying 
prostrate on his side. 

These were given him, and the doctor added some 
spirit, with the effect that the poor fellow began to 
revive, and at last sat up on the deck. 

“And how did you get here?” I said. 

“Got on board at night!” he gasped. “Crept 
into the cask — meant to get out — but packed in!” 

“ Did I not refuse you permission to come, sir?” 
cried the doctor, shaking his fist. 

“ Yes, uncle !” gasped the stowaway ; “ but Fanny 
said, if I didn’t come and take care of you, she — 
she would never — speak to me — any more! Oh, 
dear! please stop the ship! I feel so poorly!” 

“It’s a wonder you were not starved to death,” 
said the doctor. 

“Or smothered,” I said. 

“ Ye — yes,” stammered the poor fellow. “ I was 
all right till they packed things all round me, and 
then I couldn’t get out!” 

“ Shall we put the ghost specimen in the spirit 
cask, doctor?” I said. 

“Well, no,” he replied. “I think we’ll let him 
go down to the cabin. But you’d no business to 
come, Alfred, for you’ll only be in the way.” 


SEtEH ER02EK SAILOES. 


11 


“Oh, no, uncle,” he said, rapidly getting better, 
between the qualms produced by the rolling of the 
steamer; “I shall be a great help to you, uncle. 
I’ve brought my Alpenstock, a two-jointed one like 
a fishing-rod; and — and my ice-boots that I wore 
in Switzerland.” 

“Bah!” said the doctor. 

“And a climbing-rope.” 

“Pish!” exclaimed the doctor again. 

“And — a pair of snow-shoes.” 

“ Did you bring your skates, sir?” 

“No, uncle; Panny wanted me to, because she 
said I skated so beautifully; but I knew you had 
come on business, so I left them behind.” 

The doctor gave me a fat smile, and I turned 
round to check Scudds, for fear he should laugh 
outright; and lucky I did, for he was just getting 
ready for a tremendous roar, while Abram Bostock 
held his hands over his mouth. 

“Well, get below,” said the doctor; “and the 
sooner you find your sea-legs the better.” 

So our new member of the exploring expedition 
crawled below, and we set to and trimmed sails, 
for the weather was changing, steam being reserved 
till we wanted it to go through the ice. 

We did not get along very fast, for the doctor 
was always stopping the vessel for something, and 
the men soon fell in with his whims, and began to 
enjoy helping him. One day, they would be busy 
bucketing up water, for him to fill bottles with 
specimens of whales’ food; another time, we tried 
after a whale with a small gun and a harpoon fired 
from it, to the great delight of the men. Then we 
came in sight of the first iceberg, slowly sailing 


12 


SEVEN FROZEN - SAILORS. 


south, like a fairy castle on a fairy rock, that had 
broken away from its land in the North, and taken 
to the sea. The sun was shining upon it, and it 
was like one grand mass of turrets and spires, 
glistening with silver, gold, and gems of every col- 
or. Here and there, it was split into great open- 
ings, with arches over them like bridges; and near 
the sea were more archways, leading like into 
caves, and all these places were of the most deep 
sapphire blue. All was so beautiful, that even the 
old salts like Abram and Scudds said they had 
never seen anything like it up North. 

Of course, the doctor couldn’t pass it without 
landing; and as there were some seals and a few 
birds sitting on the farther side, I ran the steamer 
close in, till, in the still water on the lee, we were 
able to bring her close alongside of what was just 
like a natural wharf of ice ; when Scudds and four 
more got on the berg, a couple of ice-anchors were 
passed over to them, and soon after we were made 
fast, and the doctor took a gun, his nephew fol- 
lowed, and we had a good climb along the wonder- 
ful sides of the iceberg. 

“ If we could only get on the top I wouldn’t 
mind,” said the doctor, after making half a dozen 
tries ; but every one was a failure, for it was for all 
the world like climbing the side of a slippery 
board. 

“ Suppose you did get up, sir — what then?” I 
said. 

“What then, Captain Cookson? Why, I could 
take observations; notice the structure of the ice; 
chip off specimens; but I suppose I must be disap- 
pointed.” 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


13 


But he was not, for when toward evening we 
were sitting on deck, I said to him, “ I suppose we 
may cast loose now, doctor, and get on!” there 
suddenly came a strange scraping noise, and a pe- 
culiar motion of the ship. 

“Cut away those ice-cables!” I roared, running . 
to get an axe, for I scented the danger. 

But 1 was too late, and stopped paralyzed, hold- 
ing on by one of the shrouds ! for I suddenly woke 
to the fact that in going close in to the visible part 
of the iceberg, we had sailed in over a part of it 
that was under water, and now the huge mass of 
ice having grown top-heavy, it was slowly rolling 
over, but fortunately away from us, though the re- 
sult seemed to threaten destruction. 

Almost before I knew where I was, the steamer 
began to sway over to starboard; then I saw that 
we were lifted out of the water; and as the men 
gave a cry of horror, we rose higher, and higher, 
and higher, as the great berg rolled slowly over till 
we were quite a couple of hundred feet in the air, 
perched on almost an even keel in a narrow V- 
marked valley, with the ice rising as high as the 
main yard on either side, and the little valley we 
were in running steeply down to the sea. 

We all remained speechless, clinging to that 
which was nearest, and the motion made the doc- 
tor’s nephew exceedingly ill ; but as for the doctor, 
he was standing note-book in hand, exclaiming, 
“Wonderful! Magnificent! Captain, I would not 
have missed such a phenomenon for the world!” 

“Other world, you mean, sir!” I said, with a 
gasp of horror. “We shall never reach home 
again!” 


14 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 

“ Nonsense, man,” he said. “Why, this ice will 
melt in less than a month, and let us down.” 

“ Or turn over the other way, and finish us off, 
sir!” I said, gloomily. 

“Meanwhile, captain, I am up on the top of the 
iceberg, and can make my meteorological observa- 
tions. Alfred, bring me the glaceoscope. Hang 
the fellow, he’s always poorly when I want him. 
Captain, will you oblige?” 

I stood staring at him for a few moments, aston- 
ished at his coolness. 

“The long brass instrument,” he said, “out of 
the case numbered four, in the cabin.” 

I went and fetched the instrument, the men 
looking as much astounded as I was myself to see 
the doctor going coolly to work examining the 
structure of the ice, with its curious water-worn 
face. Then he seemed to be making measurements, 
and he ended by coming to us, rubbing his hands. 

“Curious position, isn’t it!” he said, laughing. 
“ By the way, captain, I should cast off those ice 
anchors, in case the iceberg should make another 
turn. They might be the cause of mischief.” 

“Cause of mischief! Hark at him!” said 
Abram. “ When we’re perched two hundred foot 
up here in the air! Come on, lads.” 

The ice anchors were taken out of the holes that 
had been cut for them, and were got on board as 
we settled down for the night, no man feeling dis- 
posed to sleep ; and all this while we were drifting 
slowly with the stream farther and farther south. 

This went on for four days, and then, one night, 
I remember thinking, as I lay on deck, that couM 
we be sure of the ice melting slowly at the top, and 


SEYEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


15 


letting us down, we should be safe ; but I knew 
that the bottom melted faster in the warm water, 
then the top grew heavier, and over it went again. 

I tried very hard to keep awake in case of dan- 
ger; but it was of no use, for I was worn out with 
watching, and at last I went off soundly to sleep, 
dreaming that I was drowned, and living in an ice 
cave, fish fashion, at the bottom of the sea, when I 
was awakened by Scudds, who shook me, crying, 
“Wake up, skipper! she’s a-going to launch her- 
self!” 

I jumped to my feet, to find the doctor on deck, 
lecturing his nephew about the launching of ships, 
and pointing out the gradual slope down of the ice 
valley in which we lay. 

“•She’s shifted two foot!” said Scudds. “I felt 
her move!” 

“Batten down the hatches!” I roared, seeing 
what was coming; and as soon as this was done, 
and the ship made water-tight, I gave fresh orders 
for every man to lash himself fast to the shrouds 
and belaying-pins, while I myself secured the doc- 
tor and his nephew, neither of them seeing the 
slightest danger in what was to come. 

Hardly had I done this, than there was a strange 
creaking, scratching noise, as of iron passing over 
ice; and then we felt that the vessel was in mo- 
tion, gilding down the horrible precipice toward 
the sea. 

At first she moved very slowly, but gathering 
speed, she glided faster and faster, till, with a rush 
like an avalanche, she darted down the great ice 
slide, stem first, till, at the bottom, where the ice- 
berg ended abruptly in a precipice forty or fifty 


16 


SEVEN - FROZEN - SAILORS. 


feet high, she shot right off, plunging her bowsprit 
the next instant in the water, and then all was 
darkness. 

The sensation of the slide down was not unpleas- 
ant ; the rush through the air was even agreeable ; 
but to dart down into the depths of the ocean like 
some mighty whale, was awful. There was a 
strange roaring and singing in the ears ; a feeling 
of oppression, as if miles of water were over one’s 
head ; a sense of going down, down, down into the 
depths that were like ink ; and then, by degrees, 
all grew lighter and lighter, till, with a dart like a 
diving-bird, the stout iron steamer sprang to the 
surface, rolled for a minute or two with the water 
streaming from her scuppers, and then floated 
easily on the sea, with the iceberg half a mile 
astern. 

“ Bravo! — bravo, captain! Capitally done!” 
cried the doctor. “ As fine a bit of seamanship as 
ever I saw; but you need not have made us so 
wet!” 

“Thanky, sir!” I said, for I was so taken aback 
and surprised that I didn’t know what to say, the 
more so that Abram Bostock, Scudds, and the rest 
of them took their tone from the doctor, nodded 
their heads, and said, “Very well done, indeed!” 

I didn’t believe it at first, till I had had the 
pump well sounded ; but the ship was quite right, 
and as sound as ever, so that half an hour after we 
had made sail, and were leaving the iceberg far be- 
hind. 

It was some time before I could feel sure that it 
wasn’t all a dream ; but the cool way in which the 
doctor took it all served to satisfy me, and I soon 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


17 


hacf enough to take up my attention in the manage- 
ment of the ship. 

For the next fortnight we were sailing or steam- 
ing on past floating ice, with the greatest care 
needed to avoid collision or being run down. Then 
we had foul weather, rain, and fog, and snowstorm, 
and the season seeming to get colder and colder for 
quite another fortnight, when it suddenly changed, 
and we had bright skies, constant sunshine night 
and day, and steamed slowly on through the pack 
ice. 

The doctor grew more confidential as we got on, 
telling me of the jealousy with which he had 
watched the discoveries of other men, and how, for 
years, he had determined that Curley and Pole 
should be linked together. He said that there was 
no doubt about the open Polar Sea, and that if we 
could once get through the pack ice into it, the rest 
of the task was easy. 

“But suppose, when we’ve got up there, we get 
frozen in, doctor?” I said. 

“Well, what then?” he answered. “We can 
wait till we are thawed out.” 

“Perhaps all dead,” I said. 

“Pooh, my dear sir! No such thing. Freezing 
merely means a suspension of the faculties. I will 
give you an example soon.” 

“Well, Binny,” said Abram slowly, after over- 
hearing these words, “I don’t want my faculties 
suspended; that’s all Pve got to say!” 

The next day we were working our way through 
great canals of clear water, that meandered among 
the pack ice. There were great headlands on each 
side, covered with ice and snow, and the solitude 
3 


18 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


seem eel to grow awful, but the doctor kept us all 
busy. Now it was a seal hunt; then we were all 
off after a bear. Once or twice we had a reindeer 
hunt, and supplied the ship with fresh meat. Bird 
shooting, too, and fishing had their turn, so that it 
was quite a pleasure trip when the difficulties of 
the navigation left us free. 

Eighty degrees had long been passed, and still 
our progress was not stayed. We often had a bit 
of a nip from the ice closing in, and over and over 
again we had to turn back; but we soon found 
open water again, after steaming gently along the 
edge of the track, and thence northward once more, 
till one day the doctor and I took observations, and 
we found that we were eighty -five degrees north, 
somewhere about a hundred miles farther than 
any one had been before. 

“We shall do it, Cookson!” cried the doctor, 
rubbing his hands. “ Only five more degrees, my 
lad, and we have made our fame! Cookson, my 
boy, you’ll be knighted!” 

“I hope not, sir!” I said, shuddering, as I 
thought of the City aldermen. “ I would rather be 
mourned !” 

“That’s a bad habit, trying to make jokes,” he 
said, gravely. “ Fancy, my good fellow, making a 
pun in eighty-five degrees north latitude! but I’m 
not surprised. There is no latitude observed now, 
since burlesques have come into fashion. Where 
are you going, Cookson!” 

“Up in the crow’s-nest, sir,” I said. “I don’t 
like the look of the hummocky ice out. nor’ard.” 

I climbed up, spy-glass in hand, when, to my 
horror, the doctor 'began to follow me. 


SEVEN - FROZEN - SAILORS. 


19 


“ That there crow’s-nest won’t abear you, sir!” 
cried Scudds, coining to the rescue. 

“ Think not, my man?” said the doctor. 

“Sure on’t!” said Scudds. 

“Ah, well, I’m with you in spirit, Cookson!” he 
exclaimed. 

And I finished my climb, and well swept the 
horizon line with my glass-. 

There was no mistaking it : ice, ice, ice on every 
side. The little canal through which we were 
steaming came to an end a mile farther on ; and 
that night we were frozen in fast, and knew that 
there was not a chance of being set free till the next 
year. 

The crew was divided into two parties at once, 
and without loss of time I got one set at work low- 
ering yards, striking masts, and covering in the 
ship, while the others were busied with the prep- 
aration of the sledges. 

Two days after, a party of ten of us, with plenty 
of provisions on our sledge, and a tent, started un- 
der the doctor’s guidance for the Pole. 

It was very cold, but the sun shone brightly, and 
we trudged on, the doctor showing the value of his 
natural covering, though he was less coated with 
furs than we were. 

Pie pointed out to me the shape of the land, and 
which was frozen sea ; and at the end of two days, 
when we were in a wild place, all mighty masses 
of ice, he declared his conviction that there was, 
after all, no open Polar sea, only ice to the end. 

We had had a bitter cold night, and had risen 
the next morning cold and cheerless; but a good 
hot cup of coffee set us right, and we were thinking 


20 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


of starting, when Scudds, who was with us, Abram 
being left in command, kicked at a piece of ice, 
saying, “ That’s rum-looking stuff!” 

“There’s something in it,” said the doctor’s 
nephew, who was always in the way. 

“Let me see,” said the doctor, putting on his 
spectacles. “To be sure — yes! Axes, quick!” 

He took one himself, gave the block of ice a 
sharp blow, split it in halves, and, to our utter as- 
tonishment, a strange-looking animal like a woolly 
dog lay before us, frozen, of course, perfectly hard. 

“A prize!” said the doctor; and we, under his 
orders, made a good-sized fire, laid the perfectly 
preserved animal by it, and at the end of a couple 
of hours had the satisfaction of seeing it move one 
leg, then another, and, at last, it rose slowly on all 
fours, raised one of its hind legs, scratched itself 
in the most natural way in the world, and then 
seemed to sink down all of a heap, and melt quite 
away, leaving some loose wool on the snow. 

“Well,” said Scudds, rolling his one eye, “if I 
hadn’t ha’ seen that ’ere, I wouldn’t ha’ believed 
it!” 

“ Only a case of suspended animation, my man, ” 
said the doctor, calmly. “We shall make more 
discoveries yet.” 

The doctor was right ; for this set all the men 
hunting about, he giving them every encourage- 
ment, so that at the end of an hour we had found 
another dog; but in dislodging the block of ice in 
which it was frozen, the head was broken off, so 
that the only good to be obtained by thawing it 
was the rough wool and some of the teeth, which 
the doctor carefully preserved, 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


21 


“ Isn’t it much colder here, doctor?” I said, for 
the wind seemed to go through me like a knife. 

“Hush!” he whispered; “don’t let the men 
hear, or they’ll be discouraged. It’s perfectly 
frightful; the thermometers are stopped!” 

“ Stopped?” I said. 

“Yes; the cold’s far below anything they can 
show. They are perfectly useless now. Let’s get 
on !” 

I stood staring at him, feeling a strange stupor 
coming over me. It was not unpleasant, being 
something like the minutes before one goes to sleep ; 
but I was startled into life by the doctor flying at 
me, and hitting me right in my chest. The next 
moment he had a man on each side pumping my 
arms up and down, as they forced me to run for 
quite a quarter of an hour, when I stopped, pant- 
ing, and the doctor laid his hand upon my heart. 

“He’ll do now!” he said, quietly. “Don’t you 
get trying any of those games again, captain.” 

“What games?” I said, indignantly. 

“Getting yourself frozen. Now, then, get on, 
my lads — we must go ahead!” 

For the next nine days we trudged on, dragging 
our sledge through the wonderful wilderness of ice 
and snow. At night we camped in the broad sun- 
shine, and somehow the air seemed to be much 
warmer. But on the tenth day, when we had 
reached the edge of a great, crater-like depression 
in the ice, which seemed to extend as far as the 
eye could reach, the intensity of the cold was 
frightful, and I spoke of it to the doctor, as soon 
as we had set up our little canvas and skin tent. 

“ Yes, it is cold!” he said, “ I’d give something 


22 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


to know how low it is! But let’s make our obser- 
vations.” 

We did, and the doctor triumphantly announced 
that we were within one degree of the Pole. 

We were interrupted by an outcry among the 
men, and, on going to the tent, it was to find them 
staring at the spirit-lamp, over which we heated 
our coffee. The flame, instead of fluttering about, 
and sending out warmth, had turned quite solid, 
and was like a great tongue of bright, bluish-yel- 
low metal, which rang like a bell, on being touched 
with a spoon. 

“Never mind, my men!” says the doctor coolly: 
“It is only one of the phenomena of the place. 
Captain, give the men a piece of brandy each.” 

“A little brandy apiece, you mean, sir.” 

“ No, ” he said coolly ; “ I mean a piece of brandy- 
each.” 

He was quite right : the brandy was one solid 
mass, like a great cairngorm pebble, and we had to 
break it with an axe ; and very delicious the bits 
were to suck, but as to strength, it seemed to have 
none. 

We had an accident that evening, and broke one 
of the doctor’s thermometers, the ball of quicksil- 
ver falling heavily on the ice, and, when I picked 
it up, it was like a leaden bullet, quite hard, so 
that we fired it at a bear, which came near us ; but 
it only quickened his steps. 

In spite of the tremendous cold, we none of us 
seemed much the worse, and joined the doctor in 
his hunt for curiosities. There was land here as 
well as ice, although it was covered; for there was 
on one side of the hollow quite a hill, and the doc- 


SEVEN FROZEN - SAILORS. 


23 


tor pointed out to me the trace of what he said had 
been a river, evidently emptying itself into the 
great crater ; but when he pulled out the compass 
to see in which direction the river must have run, 
the needle pointed all sorts of ways, ending by dip- 
ping down, and remaining motionless. 

We were not long in finding that animal life had 
at one time existed here; for, on hunting among 
the blocks of ice, we found several in which we 
could trace curious-looking beasts, frozen in like 
fossils. 

We had set up our tent under the lee of a great 
rock of ice, on the edge of the crater, which looked 
so smooth and so easy of ascent, that it was with 
the greatest difficulty that we could keep the doc- 
tor’s nephew from trying a slide down. He had, 
in fact, got hold of a smooth piece of ice to use as 
a sledge, when the doctor stopped him, and put an 
end to his enthusiasm by pointing down and asking 
him what was below in the distance, where the 
hollow grew deep and dark, and a strange mist 
hung over it like a cloud. 

“If you go down, Alfred, my boy, you will 
never get back. Think of my misery in such a 
case, knowing that you have, perhaps, penetrated 
the mystery of the North Pole, and that it will 
never be known!” 

The young fellow sighed at this arrest of his 
project. 

Just then we were roused by a shout from 
Scudds, whom we could see in the distance, stand- 
ing like a bear on its hind legs, and moving his 
hands. 

We all set off to him, ‘under the impression that 


24 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


he had found the Pole; but he was only standing 
pointing to a great slab of transparent ice, out of 
which stuck about ten inches of the tail of some- 
thing, the ice having melted from it; while, on 
closer examination, we could see, farther in 
through the clear, glassy ice, the hind-quarters of 
some mighty beast. 

“ A mammoth — Elephas Primigenins /” cried the 
doctor, excitedly. “ We must have him out.” 

We stared at one another, while the doctor wab- 
bled round to the other side of the great mass, 
where he set up a shout; and, on going to him, 
there he was, pointing to what looked like a couple 
of pegs about seven feet apart, sticking out of the 
face of the ice. 

“ What’s them, sir?” says one of the men. 

‘‘Tusks!” cried the doctor, delightedly. “My 
men, this is as good as discovering the North 
Pole. If we could get that huge beast out, and re- 
store his animation, what a triumph. Why, he 
must have been,” he said, pacing the length of the 
block, and calculating its height, “at least — dear 
me, yes — forty feet long, and twenty feet high.” 

“What a whopper!” growled Scudds. “Well, I 
found him.” 

“We must have him out, my men,” said the 
doctor again, but he said it dubiously, for it seemed 
a task beyond us, for fire would not burn, and 
there was no means of getting heat to melt the 
vast mass ; so at last we returned to the camp, and 
made ourselves snug for the night. 

In the morning, the doctor had another inspec- 
tion of the mammoth, and left it with a sigh ; but 
in the course of the day we found traces of dozens 


SEVEN- EROZEK SAILORS. 25 

of the great beasts, besides the remains of other 
great creatures that must have been frozen-in hun- 
dreds or thousands of years before ; and the place 
being so wonderfully interesting, the doctor deter- 
mined to stay there for a few days. 

The first thing, under the circumstances, was to 
clear the snow away, bank it up round us, and set 
up the tent in the clear place under the shelter of 
the big mammoth block. 

We all went at it heartily, and as we scraped 
the snow off, it was to find the ice beneath as clear 
as glass. 

“ Ah!” said the doctor, sitting down and looking 
on, after feeling the mammoth’s tail, knife in 
hand, as if longing to cut it off, “it’s a wonderful 
privilege, my lads, to come up here into a part of 
the earth where the foot of man has never trod be- 
fore! Eh! what is it?” he cried, for his nephew 

suddenly gave a howl of dread, dropped the scraper 
he had been using, jumped over the snow heap, 
and ran off. 

“ What’s he found?” said Scudds, crossing to the 
place where the young man had been busy scrap- 
ing, and staring down into the ice. “Any one 
would think Oh, lor’ !” 

He jumped up, and ran away, too, and so did 
another sailor ; when the doctor and I went up to 
the spot, looked down, and were very nearly fol- 
lowing the example set us, for there, only a few 
inches from us, as if lying in a glass coffin, was a 
man on his back, with every feature perfect, and 
eyes wide open, staring straight at us ! 

“Wonderful!” exclaimed the doctor. 

“ Then some one has been here before?” I said. 


26 


SEVEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


“ The ice must have drifted up, ” said the doctor. 
rf We are the only men who have penetrated so far. 
Quick, my lads; we must have him out!” 

The boys didn’t like the task, and Scudds was 
almost mutinous; but the doctor soon had us at 
work, cutting a groove all round the figure; and, 
after about five hours’ chipping, we got out the 
great block with the figure inside perfect, and laid 
it down in the sun, which now exercised such 
power in the middle of the day that the ice began 
to thaw, just as we awoke to the fact that the cold 
was nothing like so intense, for the spirit lamp on 
being tried burned freely, and the brandy, instead 
of being like rock, showed signs of melting. 

At first the men held aloof from the operation ; 
but after a few words from the doctor, Scudds sud- 
denly exclaimed, “No one shall say as I’m afraid 
of him!” — and he rolled his eye wonderfully as he 
helped to pour hot water over the figure, which, 
far from being ghastly as the ice grew thinner, 
looked for all the world like one of our own men 
lying down. 

In about twelve hours we had got all the ice 
clear away, and the fur clothes in which the body 
was wrapped were quite soft. We were then so 
tired, that, it being night, the doctor had the fig- 
ure well wrapped up in a couple of buffalo robes, 
and, in spite of a good deal of opposition, placed 
beside him in the tent, and we lay down to rest. 

I don’t know how long we’d been asleep, for, 
with the sun shining night and day, it bothers 
you, but I was awoke by somebody sneezing. 

“Uncle’s got a fine cold!” said young Smith, 
who was next to me. 


SEVEN' FROZEN SAILORS. 


27 


“So it seems !” I said; and then there was an- 
other sneeze, and another, and another; and when 
I looked, there was the doctor, sitting up and star- 
ing at the figure by his side, which kept on sneez- 
ing again and again. Then, to our horror, it sat 
up and yawned, and threw its arms about. 

Every fellow in the little tent was about to get 
up and run away, when the frozen sailor said, in a 
sleepy fashion, “ Why, it’s as cold as ever!” 

I tried to speak, but couldn’t. The doctor an- 
swered him, though, by saying, “ How did you get 
here?” 

“Well,” said the figure, drowsily, “that means 

a yarn; and if I warn’t so plaguey sleepy, I’d 

Heigho! — ha! — hum! Well, here goes!” 

We sat quite awe-stricken, not a man stirring 
more than to put a bit of pigtail in his mouth, 
while the English sailor thus spun his yar.n : — 


CHAPTER II. 


THE ENGLISH SAILOR’S YARN. 

You see, I haven’t the trick of putting it to- 
gether, or else, I dare say, I could spin you no end 
of a yarn out of many a queer thing I’ve come 
across, and many a queer thing that’s happened to 
me up and down. 

Well, yes, I’ve been wrecked three times, and 
I’ve been aboard when a fire’s broken out, and I’ve 
seen some fighting — close work some of it, and 
precious hot; and I was once among savages, and 
there was one that was a kind of a princess among 
’em But there, that’s no story, and might hap- 

pen to any man. 

If I were Atlantic Jones now, I could tell you a 
story worth listening to. Atlantic Jones was made 
of just the kind of stuff they make heroes out of 
for story books. He was a rum ’un was J. If I 
could spin a yarn about anything, it ought to be 
about him, now. I only wish I could. 

Why was he called Atlantic? I can’t rightly 
say. I don’t think he was christened so. I think 
it was a name he took himself. It was to pass off 
the Jones, which was not particularly imposing 
without the first part for the trade he belonged to. 
He was a play-actor. 

I don’t think he had ever done any very great 
28 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


29 


things at it before I met with him; anyhow, he 
was rather down on his luck just then, and shabby 
— well, anything nearer rags, and yet making be- 
lieve to have an air of gentility about it, I never 
came across. I don’t remember ever having a 
boot-heel brought so directly under my observation 
which was so wonderfully trodden down on one 
side. In a moment of confidence, too, he showed 
me a hole in the right boot-sole that he had worn 
benefit cards over, on the inside — some of the un- 
sold ones remaining from his last ticket night. 

I was confoundedly hard up myself about that 
time, having just come ashore from a trip in one of 
those coffin ships, as they call them now. “ Kun” 
they wanted to make out, but it wasn’t much of a 
run, either. The craft was so rotten, there were 
hardly two planks sticking properly together, and 
the last man had scarcely got his last leg into the 
boat, when the whole ricketty rabbit-hutch went 
down, and only as many bubbles as you could fill a 
soup-plate with stayed a-top to mark the wherea- 
bouts. But the owners wanted to press the charge, 
and for a while I wanted to lie close, and that’s 
why I came to London, which is a big bag, as it 
were, where one pea’s like another when they’re 
well shaken up in it. 

You’ll say it was rather like those birds who, 
when they hear the sportsman coming, dive their 
heads into the sand, and leave the other three- 
quarters of them in full view to be shot at, think- 
ing no one else can see it, because they don’t hap- 
pen to be able to see it themselves. You’ll say it 
was like one of them, for me, a sailor, wanting to 
keep dark from the police, to go skulking about in 


30 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


waterside taverns and coffee-houses Wapping and 
Rotherhithe way ; well, perhaps it was. 

It was at a coffee-house in Wapping I met At- 
lantic Jones, and he scared me a bit the first time 
I met him. It wasn’t a pretty kind of coffee-house, 
not one of those you read about in that rare old 
book, the Spectator, where the fops, and dandies, 
and bloods, “most did congregate,” where they 
“quaffed” and “toasted” in the good old style, 
which, by the way, must have been somewhat of 
an expensive old style, and, thank goodness, even 
some of us third or fourth-raters, nowadays, can 
spend an odd half-hour or so from time to time very 
much as the biggest nobs would spend it, though 
we have but a few silver pieces in our pocket. 

To the good old style of coffee-house my fine 
gentleman, with the brocaded coat-tails, dainty 
lace ruffles, and big, powdered periwig, would be 
borne, smoothly (with an occasional jolt or two 
that went for nothing) in a sedan chair; and on 
his arrival there, if it were night-time, would call 
for his wine, his long pipe, his newspaper, and his 
wax-candles, and sit solemnly enjoying himself, 
while humbler folks blinked in the dim obscurity 
surrounding him, for most likely it was not every- 
body frequenting the place who could afford to be 
thus illuminated. 

No; this was one of the most ordinary, common, 
and objectionable kind of coffee-shops, where the 
most frequent order was for “half a pint and 
slices;” where the half-pint was something thick 
and slab, which analytical research might have 
proved to be artfully compounded of parched 
peas and chicory, with a slight flavoring of burnt 


SEVEtf EROZEtf SAILORS. 31 

treacle; while the slices were good old, solemn, 
stale bread, with an oleaginous superficial surface, 
applied by a skilled hand, spreading over broader 
surfaces than scarcely would have seemed credible ; 
so that regular customers, when they wanted to 
have their joke, would pick up a a slice, and turn 
it about, and hold it up to the light and put a 
penny in their right eye, making believe they had 
got an eye-glass there, and say, “Look here, 
guv’nor! which side is it? I’m only a arskin’ fear 
it should fall on my Sunday go-to-meeting suit, 
and grease it.” 

Rashers of quite unbelievable rancidness, and 
“ nice eggs, ” in boiling which poultry, in its early 
promise, was not unfrequently made an untimely 
end of, were the chief articles of consumption. 
The newspapers and periodicals — which, somehow, 
always appeared to be a week old — were marked 
by innumerable rings, where the customers had 
stood their coffee-cups upon them, and there were 
thousands of brisk and lively flies forever buzzing 
round about the customers’ heads and settling on 
their noses; and thousands more of sleepy flies, 
stationary on the walls and ceiling, and thickly 
studding the show rasher in the window; and 
thousands and thousands more dead flies, lying 
about everywhere, and turning up as little sur- 
prises in the milk jug and the coffee-grounds, on 
the butter, or under the bacon, when you turned 
it over. 

Not in the eggs, by-the-bye. You were pretty 
safe from them there — the embryo chick was the 
worst thing that could happen to you. 

Not altogether a nice kind of place to pass one’s 


32 


SEYEK FROZEN - SAILORS. 


evenings in, you are thinking. Well, no; but it 
was uncommonly quiet, and snug, and uncommonly 
cheap, which was rather a point with me. I was, 
in truth, so hard up that night that I had stood 
outside the window a good twenty mniutes, bal- 
ancing my last coin — a fourpenny-bit — in my hand, 
and tossing up, mentally, to decide whether I 
should spend it in a bed or a supper. I decided 
on the latter, and entered the coffee-house, where 
I hoped, after I had eaten, to be able to sleep away 
an hour or two in peace, if I could get a snug corner 
to myself. 

Several other people, however, seemed to have 
gone there with something of the same idea, and 
snored up and down, with their heads comfortably 
pillowed among the dirty plates and tea-things, 
while others carried on low, muttered conversa- 
tions, and one woman was telling an interminable 
tale, breaking off now and then to whimper. 

There was one empty box, in a darkish corner, 
and I made for that, and ordered my meal — thank- 
ing my stars that I had been so lucky as to find 
such a good place. But I was not left long in un- 
disputed possession of it. 

While I was disposing of the very first mouthful 
the shop-door opened, and a blue-cheeked, anxious- 
looking man peeped in, as though he were fright- 
ened — or, perhaps, ashamed — and glanced eagerly 
round. Then, as it seemed, finding nothing of a 
very alarming character, he came a step further in, 
and stopped again, to have another look, and his 
eyes fell upon me, and he stared very hard indeed, 
and came straight to my box, and sat down opposite 
to me. 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


33 


I can’t say this made me feel particularly com- 
fortable, for, you see, for some days past I had 
spent the greater part of m3' time slipping stealth- 
ily round corners, and dodging up and down the 
sneakiest courts and alleys I could come across, 
with an idea that every lamp-post was a policeman 
in disguise that had got his eye on me. 

I can’t say I felt much more comfortable at this 
stranger’s behavior, when he had taken his seat 
and ordered a cup of coffee and a round of toast, 
in a low, confidential tone of voice, just, as it 
struck me, as a detective might have done who had 
the coffee-shop keeper in his pay. Then he pulled 
a very mysterious little brown paper-covered book 
from his pocket, consisting of some twenty pieces 
of manuscript, and he attentively read in it, and 
then fixed his eyes upon the ceiling and mumbled. 

Said I to myself, “Perhaps this is some poor 
parson chap, learning up his sermon for next Sun- 
day.” 

But then this was only Monday night ; it could 
hardly be that. 

Presently, too, I noticed that he was secretly 
taking stock of me round the side of the book. 
What, after all, if the written sheets of paper con- 
tained a minute description of myself and the other 
runaways who were “wanted”? 

He [now certainly seemed to be making a com- 
parison between me and something he was reading 
— summing me up, as it were — and I felt precious 
uncomfortable, I can tell you. 

All at once he spoke. 

“It’s a chilly evening, sir.” 

“ Yes,” I said. 

3 


34 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“A sailor, I think?” 

There was no good denying that. A sailor looks 
like a sailor, and nothing else. 

“Yes,” I said, slowly. 

“A line profession, sir!” said he; “a noble pro- 
fession. Shiver my timbers!” 

Now, you know, we don’t shiver our timbers in 
reality; and if we did, we shouldn’t shiver them 
in the tone of voice the blue-cheeked man shivered 
his, and I couldn’t resist a broad grin, though I 
still felt uncomfortable. 

“I’ve no objection, I’m sure,” said I, “if you 
have none.” 

He was silent for a while, and seemed to be 
thinking it over, then went on reading and mum- 
bling. Evidently he was a detective. I had met 
one before once, dressed as a countryman, and 
talking Brummagem Yorkshire. A detective want- 
ing to get into conversation with a sailor was just 
likely, I fancied, to start with an out-of-the-way 
thing like “shiver my timbers.” I made my 
mind up I wouldn’t be pumped very dry. 

“ Been about the world a good deal, sir, I sup- 
pose?” he said, returning to the charge after a brief 
pause. “ Been wrecked, I dare say — often?” 

“Pretty often — often enough.” 

“Have you, now?” he said, laying down his 
book, and leaning back, to have a good look at me 
as he drew a long breath. “ A— h!” 

I went on with my meal, putting the best face 
I could on it, and pretending not to notice him ; 
but it was not very easy to do this naturally, and 
at last I dropped my bread and butter, and fixed 
him, in my turn. 


SEVEN- FROZEN - SAILORS. 


35 


“You ought to know me in time,” said I. 

“I should be proud to!” he answered, readily. 
“I should take it as a favor if you’d allow me to 
make your acquaintance — to become friendly with 
you!” 

“Well,” said I, still with the detective idea 
strong on me, “ you see, I like to know whom it is 
I’m making friends with. What port do you hail 
from, pray?” 

The strange man made a plunge at me, and 
shook my hand heartily, shaking also the slice of 
bread and butter I was holding in it. 

“Did you take me for a seafaring man?” he 
asked, in a joyful voice. “ You really don’t mean 
that? That’s capital!” 

“ Well,” said I, “aren’t you?” 

“No,” he answered, in great excitement; “of 
course not. I’m going to be very shortly, if I’ve 
any luck, but I’ve not taken to the line yet. See 
here, sir, that’s who I am.” 

And, so saying, he produced a large illustrated 
play-bill from his pocket, such as you may find 
stuck about the walls at the East-end, or on the 
Surrey side, and on which I read, “ The Death 
Struggle. Enormous success!” in large letters. 

“Oh!” I said; “that’s you, is it?” 

I thought he was, probably, rather cracked. 

But he tapped his finger-end emphatically upon 
one particular spot, and indicated half a line of 
very small type, and stooping my head so as to 
bring my eyes down close to it I made out, “ Count 
Randolph, a gambler and a roue, Mr. Jones.” 

When I had read it, he appeared to look at me, 
expecting that I should say something appropriate, 


36 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


or, at any rate, look awe-stricken. But it was 
very funny to look at this long-faced, hungry-look- 
ing fellow, pitching into his buttered toast, and 
associate him with the wickedness set down to his 
account, so “Bless me!” was as much as I could 
possibly manage. 

“Yes, it is,” said he; “but that’s nothing. It’s 
a dirty shame of them to put a fellow in that type, 
and leave his initial out, too! But that’s all jeal- 
ousy, you know. That’s Barkins, that is! It’s 
Barkins’s house, and Barkins’s bill, and, hang it! 
it’s all Barkins’s!” 

On referring a second time to the picture-bill, 
there, sure enough, I found the name of Barkins 
flourishing in all sorts of type and in all manner 
of places. 

“Ah!” cried Mr. Jones, finishing his coffee with 
one gulp, “it won’t always be so, that’s one com- 
fort! I’ve a chance here, sir, — one of a thousand; 
and you’ll see then whether I’m equal to it or 
not!” 

“I’m sure you will be,” I replied, not exactly 
knowing what else to say. “ You find your busi- 
ness rather hard work sometimes, don’t you? and 
the pay sometimes a little doubtful?” I added, af- 
ter a pause. 

“I wish it was only a little,” Mr. Jones replied, 
with a woful grin ; “ but I get along, somehow — I 
keep alive, somehow; and it won’t always be so — 
not when I get my chance, you know!” 

I really thought I ought to say something now, 
so I asked when he expected the chance, and what 
it was. 

“Ah, that’s it!” said he. “Do you know you 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 37 

could be a good deal of service to me, if you’d the 
time?” 

“I’ve more time than money, worse luck!” I 
said. “ I should be glad to earn a trifle anyhow, 
and should be much obliged if you could point out 
the how; but as to being of service to you, I’d 
gladly be that for nothing.” 

You see, I had taken a good look at Mr. Jones’s 
ragged edges and glazed elbows by this time, and 
had come to the conclusion that, even gambler and 
roue as he was, he must have had about as much 
as he could do to look after himself. 

I was mistaken. Mr. Jones had influence, 
though he might be short of cash. 

“If you’re really hard up,” he said, “I can put 
you onto a kind of job — if you like it. They are 
doing ‘The Battle of Blenheim’ at our place. It’ll 
be eighteenpence a night. You’ll have to double 
the armies, and be shot down at the end of every 
act. But it’s all easy enough.” 

I thought this would suit me very well for the 
time, and most likely shooting down wasn’t per- 
manently injurious to the system any more than 
being a gambler and a roue ; so I thanked him very 
much. 

“ But how can I help you in return?” I asked. 

“ Well, it’s to that chance I spoke of,” he said, 
confidentially. “Look here — I’ve an engagement 
for a tour down to the Midland counties. The pay 
isn’t very wonderful, to start with; but I’m to 
have more if we do good business, you -know; and 
I’ve stipulated that we do a nautical drama, and I 
play Jack Brine — that’s the sailor hero, you know 
— myself.” 


38 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“What makes you want to play a sailor? I 
suppose you’ve done it before, and made a hit?” 

“ Well — no; I can’t say I’ve ever tried it. But 
nautical pieces used to be a tremendous go once, 
and are so still down in some parts of the country, 

and There! l’vegotit in me, I’m certain — I 

feel it here!” 

And he tapped the breast of a dilapidated sham 
sealskin waistcoat as he spoke, and knit his brows 
with determination. 

“ But you haven’t told me yet how I can be of 
service to you,” said I. 

“Well,” he said, “look here! This is one of 
the acts of the piece I’m going to do. I’ve done it 
myself — faked it up, you know, pulling in the best 
bits from one or two others; but that’s nothing — 
and it’ll go immense! It’s cram-full of business, 
and the situations are tremendous!” 

“ It ought to go, if that’s the case.” 

“It’s a certainty, dear boy! It can’t help it! 
But there’s just one thing about it, do you know, 
that makes me uncomfortable, and that’s where 
you can help me.” 

“ And that is ” 

“ You see, I’m not a nautical man myself. It 
was very odd of you to take me for one right off! 
Of course, I can put it on pretty well when I 
like ; but if you want the real honest truth, I never 
even saw the sea in all my life — never been nearer 
to it than Kosherville; and as I don’t happen to be 
personally acquainted with any nautical men, the 
fact is I’m not quite certain there is not a screw 
loose up and down in the words. Of course I’m 
all right in the shiver my timbers and douse my 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


39 


pig-tails parts; but it’s when you get reefing your 
jib-boom and hugging the shore with your lee- 
scrupper that you don’t feel altogether as if you’d 
got your sea legs on. Look here, I’d like to go 
through the thing with you quietly, and you can 
tell me where it isn’t quite right.” 

I gladly agreed to render him all the assistance 
in my power. I thought if there was very much 
more of the same style he had been quoting there 
ought to have been a shipwreck or two up and 
down in that piece of his, and that I should be 
something like a Captain Boyton’s swimming- 
dress to this poor struggling author over head and 
ears in a tempestuous ocean of his own manufacture. 

I met him by appointment, therefore, next day 
at the stage door of the theatre where he was act- 
ing, and where he had promised to procure me an 
opening as extra or supernumerary. He got me on 
easily enough, and my duties, though they made 
me precious hot, did not require very much genius. 
I was on my mettle, and wanted to reflect as much 
credit as possible upon my new friend for the in- 
troduction, so I fought away and took forlorn hopes 
like one o’clock; and the prompter was good 
enough to say that I evidently had something in 
me, and would do better presently, if I stuck to it. 

After a night or two they found I was an active 
kind of fellow, and had the full use of my arms 
and legs, so they introduced a bit of rope climbing 
on my account, and worked in another bit spe- 
cially, where I was shot down from among the rig- 
ging, with a round of applause every night. 

In the daytime, Mr. Jones and I talked the nau- 
tical drama, and I set his “ lee scuppers” right for 


40 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


him, and got him to make things generally a little 
bit more like the right thing. 

At the end of a fprtnight, however, I was able 
to get at my friends, and through them to stop the 
mouths of the angry coffin -ship owners ; and so I 
had no more occasion to fight shy of the seaports, 
and resolved to go to sea again. 

If it had not been for that, Mr. Jones would 
have tried to get me into the company he was just 
then joining, and I should have figured in one or 
two small parts in the great drama. 

However, instead of that, I bid him good-by, 
and thanked him, and wished him every success, 
and went my way, leaving him to go his. 


I only went for a short cruise round the coast of 
Spain, but I met with the pleasantest mates — bar 
present company, of course — I ever remember sail- 
ing with. W e all of us got to be like brothers be- 
fore the ship touched land again in England, and 
as another vessel was in want of hands, and about 
to sail in two or three days for the China Sea, I 
and five others agreed to stick together and join. 
I took two days just to drop down and see my 
J'riends, and the next day we met together and had 
a bit of a spree, agreeing to spend our last night at 
the play. I had told my messmates about Jones, 
and how I had been on the stage myself, so they 
looked up to me as rather an authority, as you may 
suppose, and passing me over the play-bill the 
waiter had brought us, asked if I knew anything 
of the piece they were playing. 

Know anything, indeed! 


SEVEH FROZEN SAILORS. 


41 


Ha! ha! That was not bad. 

Why, it was Jones’s piece, and Atlantic 
Jones, in great letters, was to appear in his great 
character of Jack Brine , the Bo’s’en of the Bay of 
Biscay. 

Of course we went. We were there for that 
matter a good hour before there was any absolute 
necessity, and stood waiting at the doors. There 
weren’t many other people waiting there, by the 
way. There was one small boy, if I remember 
right. Not another soul; and at first we weren’t 
quite sure we had not mistaken the night. How- 
ever, that was not so. The doors did open a few 
minutes late, and then we made a rush in all at 
once, paying a shilling and sixpence each all round 
for seats in the dress circle. 

After we’d been there some little time, and the 
small boy had been the same time in the last seat 
in the pit, from which he stared up at us with his 
eyes and mouth wide open, we caught sight of 
some one peeping in a frightened kind of way round 
the curtain. It was Jones, and we all gave him a 
cheer to encourage him, and let him know we had 
rallied round. 

He didn’t seem encouraged, but ran away again ; 
and the money-taker, having plenty of spare time 
on his hands, as it seemed, came and told us to 
keep steady if we wanted to stop where we were. 

My mates were, some of them, inclined to run 
rusty at the advice, for we’d done no more than 
make things look a bit cheerful under rather de- 
pressing circumstances, only we would not have a 
row with him, for Jones’s sake. After a while, 
one or two more people dropped in, up and down, 


42 


SETE# FROZE# SAILORS. 


and we were, maybe, thirty in all, when the 
curtain went up at last, and business began in 
earnest. 

I’ve spent a good many roughish nights, and 
suffered a tidy lot in ’em, but I wouldn’t engage 
under a trifle for another such night as that was. 
I pitied poor Jones from the bottom of my heart. 

You see, he was a well-meaning kind of fellow, 
but there wasn’t a great deal of him, and he hadn’t 
all the voice he might have had: and when he sang 
out as loud as he could, but rather squeaky, 
“ Avast there, you land-lubbers, or I’ll let daylight 
into you!” someone said, ‘‘Don’t hurt ’em, sir^ 
they mightn’t like it!” 

About the end of the second act he began to 
show signs of being dead beat, and I sent him 
round a pot of stout to help him on, for I regularly 
felt for him. We applauded all we could, too. 
The pit ceiling was a sufferer that night, so I don’t 
deceive you; but it was no good. No one else ap- 
plauded a bit. Some of them hissed. Indeed, if 
it had not been for my mates being my mates, and 
sticking to me and Jones, as in duty bound, I be- 
lieve they’d have hissed, too. As it was, when 
the act-drop fell, and we all went out for a liquor, 
they weren’t over-anxious to come back again, only 
they did, of course. 

The last act was very cruel. I think the stout 
had got into Jones’s head, and into his legs, too; 
for he was all over the stage, and, we fancied, half 
his time, didn’t know what he was up to. Then 
came the great situation, wdiere he was to board the 
pirate schooner single-handed, and rescue his 
lady-love — and, in the name of everything that is 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


43 


awfully dreadful, what do you think happened to 
Jones then? 

It might have been something wrong in the see* 
nery, or it might have been something wrong with 
Jones, but he appeared on the upper deck of the 
pirate boat, and was going to jump down on the 
lower deck, flourishing a cutlass, when he some- 
how slipped, and caught behind. 

I shall never forget it. He caught somehow by 
the trousers, and hung there, dangling like an old 
coat on a peg. Then he tore himself loose with a 
great wrench, while every one in the house was 
screaming with laughter, and rushed off the stage. 

We took poor Jones away that night, and we 
liquored him up a lot, and he wept as he told us 
what he had gone through, and somehow we 
couldn’t laugh much as we listened to him. 

I don’t know how it happened. I think he said 
he would go on board with us, and have a final 
glass, and he was to come back in a boat that had 
taken some goods on board from the shore. I 
don’t know how it was, I say; but six hours after 
we had got fairly out to sea, some one found a pair 
of legs sticking out from behind something, and 
at the end of these legs were Jones’s head and 
body. 

When we had shaken him out of a dead sleep, 
he asked to be put on shore at once, and talked 
wildly of bringing an action against the skipper. 
But the skipper put it to Jones in a jocular kind of 
way, that the general practice was to keel-haul 
stowaways, when you felt inclined to treat them 
kindly, or heave them overboard with a shot tied 
to their heels, if you didn’t; so Jones calmed down 


44 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


after a while, and made up his mind to go to China 
with us quietly, and make no more fuss about it. 

I don’t think a man on board wanted to act un- 
kindly to poor Jones; and, ’pon my soul, I’d not 
have sat by quietly and seen it. But Jones 
tempted Providence, as it were, and was the un- 
luckiest beggar alive. 

To begin with, I never knew a man so sea-sick 
that it didn’t kill right off. I never knew a man 
with more unreliable legs on him; so that there 
was no saying where he’d be to a dozen yards or so 
when he once started. And he fell overboard 
twice. So all this made him rather a laughing- 
stock among the regular hands. But he was so 
good-natured, and stood the chaff so good-humor- 
edly, that we got all of us to take a mighty fancy 
to his company. 

Poking fun upon one subject only he did not 
take to kindly, and that was the famous Jack 
Brine impersonation, which we presently found 
out, very much to our surprise, he looked upon as 
little short of perfection. 

“I don’t regret this affair altogether,” said he, 
one day. “ You see, all I want is actual experience 
of the perils of the ocean.” 

Before long he had them, too. 

The reason why we had been required to join in 
such a hurry was that several of the foreign sailors 
had run at the last moment, and there was a great 
difficulty in obtaining any Englishmen willing to 
sail with them. With the exception of the skipper, 
we six sailors, and Atlantic Jones, the rest 
were all Lascars — savage, sneaking, bloodthirsty 
wretches, that there was no trusting a moment 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


45 


out of your sight. I had never before made a voy- 
age with that kind of company, and, if I can help 
it, never will again. However, we felt no partic- 
ular uneasiness about them. Any one of us, we 
simply consoled ourselves by reflecting, could quite 
easily thrash half a dozen of the foreign beggars 
in a fair fight. The worst of it was, though, when 
the fight did come, it was not a fair one. 

I began by telling you that I was a bad story- 
teller; I must finish by telling you so again. And 
after all, what story have I left to tell, which 
would not be to you, sailors like myself, a thrice- 
told tale? It came about, in the usual way, with 
a night surprise. I woke up with a man’s hand 
tightening on my throat, with a gleaming knife 
before my eyes. Then — thud! thud! — it came 
down on me, through the thick blankets I had 
twisted round me. Lucky for me they were so 
thick ! 

This was all I saw ; then the light was knocked 
out, and I heard the black wretch’s naked feet 
pattering on the steps, as he went up swiftly to 
the deck above, then a deep groan from the bunk of 
oneof my old messmates — it was one called Adams. 

I was horribly cut about, and bleeding fast; but 
I managed to creep out, and feel through the dark- 
ness. I came, just within a few feet, upon a man’s 
body, stretched out, lying on its face. Though it 
was dark as pitch, I had no need, to touch it twice 
to know that it was a dead body. Then I got to 
Adams, and called him by name. 

He answered faintly, “Yes!” 

I asked him where the crew were, and whether 
he knew what had happened. 


40 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


They were all killed, he thought, and the Las- 
cars had got the vessel in their hands. 

We were doubtless supposed to be murdered, 
too. It must have all been done very quickly. 
Adams had heard no sound from the deck above, 
and I had heard none. 

The crippled condition in which we were, and 
the darkness, rendered us almost entirely helpless ; 
but I managed somehow — partly on my feet, partly 
on my hands and knees — to crawl up the ladder. 
The hatchway was closed above me. We were 
prisoners. 

I could from this place make out that a wild de- 
bauch was going on on the after-deck, and I 
heard one of the scoundrels shrieking out a song, 
in a wild, discordant voice. They had broken open 
the stores, and were getting mad drunk with rum. 

I crawled back to tell the news, and to think 
what could be done. 

Adams was almost fainting from loss of blood. 
Tor myself, I was scarcely good for anything — not 
for a struggle, that was certain. I might defend 
myself for a time. I would try, anyhow. I could 
only die. 

All at once we heard the hatchway openi'ng 
stealthily. 

“Whist!” said Jones’s voice. “Who’s alive 
down there?” 

“Two!” I answered. “Adams and I — Tom 
Watson. We are both badly wounded.” 

“Thank heaven you are not dead!” he said. 
“You can save yourselves, if you’ve strength 
enough to lower yourselves into a boat. I’ve got 
it down into the water. Will you try?” 



it 


11 


WE COULD SEE THE DARK FIGURES OF THE REST IN THE SEMI-DARKNESS 








SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


47 


We went at once, and gained the deck. Only 
one of the villains was on the watch forward. We 
could see the dark figures of the rest sprawling 
about in the semi- darkness far aft, and we went 
down on our hands and knees, and crawled in the 
shadow to the side. But just as we reached it, the 
moon came out from behind a cloud, and the man 
fired, and shouted loudly. 

Adams went down, and we two only were left. 

“ Save yourself! Jump!” cried Jones. “I’ll 
keep ’em back! Avast there, you black-hearted 
swabs, or I’ll chop you to pieces!” And as five 
of them, the soberest of the lot, came rushing on 
us in a body, he laid about him right and left with 
a large cutlass, much heavier than I should have 
believed he could use, and the beggars rolled over, 
slashed and mangled beneath his strokes. 

I never before or since have seen a man fight 
like Atlantic Jones did then. Stripped to the 
waist, his long hair flying in the wind, his hands 
red with blood, his body bespattered, too, he 
looked more like a fiend than a human being, 
much less a very bad play-actor; but all the while 
he fought he never once ceased yelling out the silly 
gibberish he thought was sailors’ talk. 

They fell back at last enough to allow us to reach 
the boat, and we pushed off. They fired on us 
then, furiously, and I did all I could to make 
Jones lie down, to be out of harm’s way, but he 
would not — continuing to yell defiance and wave 
his cutlass. Those left alive were too drunk, for- 
tunately for us, to make any decisive effort to stop 
us ; and we drifted away, for the oars had fallen 
into the water. 


48 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


This would be a longer tale — and it’s long 
enough now, I’m sure — if I were to tell you what 
we suffered those four days we drifted in the open 
sea. Then, more dead than alive, I was taken on 
board a passing ship; and Jones, who had tended 
me the while with every possible care, though his 
own sufferings were at times intense, nursed me 
through a long illness. 


I told you I never could tell a tale. My tale 
ought to have begun where it’s left off, pretty 
nearly. 


The last time I saw Jones he was at his play- 
acting again at the Hull Theatre. He was a sailor 
once more, and had a deuce of a set-to with some 
Lascars. But the audience didn’t seem to think 
much of it. They goosed him, and shied orange- 
peel. 

Very low-spirited he was, poor chap, when I 
met him at the stage-door afterwards, and he 
didn’t cheer up much when I stood some beer. 

Next day I picked up with a skipper, and got 
off on a whaling voyage. Rare game it was, 
ketching the big fish, I can tell you, only one day 
they put me ashore on an iceberg to pick a hole for 
an ice-anchor, so as to get the ship on the lee when 
it came on to blow. 

I didn’t take no notice though, but kept on pick- 
ing away, till all at once there came on such a fog 
that I could hardly see my boots. 

That there fog lasted three days, and when it 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


49 


was gone, there was no ship nowhere, and the ice- 
berg drifting away doo north as hard as ever it 
could go. 

I wouldn’t ha’ cared if it hadn’t been so cold, 
for I got plenty of seals and sea-birds, snaring ’em 
when they was asleep ; but the cold was awful, and 
when we got stuck fast — froze up at last — I was 
glad to get a good run over the solid ice, which I 
did till I came to the edge of a big basin, like, 
where I lay down, tired out, and dropped off to 
sleep. You’ve just come, I suppose? 

The doctor nodded. 

“ Ah! and it’s as cold as ever,” said the English 
sailor. “Now, if Atlantic Jones — Heigh — was — 
ho — here — hum! Well, I am sleepy. Got a tot 
of grog, mates?” 

The doctor reached out his hand for the case-bot- 
tle; but, as he did so, there seemed to be a mist 
come on suddenly where the English sailor sat; 
and, when it cleared away, there was a lot of 
moisture freezing hard, an empty tobacco-box, and 
the rusty blade of a knife. 

“ As-tonishing!” said the doctor. “Suspended 
animation!” 

“But where’s he gone now?” I says. 

“Into his original constituents,” said the doctor; 
and our fellows all shuffled out of the tent, with 
their fur caps lifted up by their hair, and wouldn’t 
go in again ; so we had to move the bit of a camp 
farther up along the edge of the big basin, and 
scrape and clear the snow off the transparent ice — 
where, hang me! if there wasn’t another fellow a 
few inches down. 

“Yes,” says the doctor; “this place is full of 
4 


50 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


relics -of the past, and if we searched we should 
find hundreds. Get him out!” 

“But what’s the good?” growled Scudds, “if 
they on’y melts away again?” 

“We must do it for scientific reasons,” says the 
doctor. “ Out with him, men!” 

There was no help for it, so at it we went ; and 
now our chaps got over some of their scared feel- 
ings, all but the doctor’s nevvy, who did nothing 
but shiver, and nearly jumped out of his ice-boots, 
when, after thawing, the rough figure we had got 
out of the ice sat up suddenly, and exclaimed — 

“ An’ did somebody say how did I get here?” 

“We thought it,” said the doctor. 

“Bedad! I heard ye,” said the figure. “Give’s 
a taste of rum, which is the best makeshift for 
poteen, and I’ll tell ye. Bui it’s very cowld.” 

He cowered close over the lamp, trying to warm 
his hands ; and I noticed that when they handed 
him some rum, he put it down by his side, going 
on talking like to the lamp, as he spun away at his 
story. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE IRISH SAILOR^ YARN. 

“ The Ghost on Boord Ship.” 

I have followed the say, man and boy, any 
time these thirty years and more; and sure it’s 
but little I have to tell you about that same in the 
way of short commons, long voyages, mishaps, and 
shipwrecks that would be interesting to you, seeing 
that, in all rasonable probability, you have all of 
you had your fair share of the like. 

However, maybe I can spin you a short yarn 
about what every one of you hasn’t seen, and that 
is a “ ghost on boord ship.” 

“A ghost on board ship!” chorused the sailors, 
turning eagerly toward the speaker. 

Bedad, ye may say that, and as fine a ghost 
as ever mortial man set eyes upon. 

You must know I was always partial to the say, 
and first tried my hand at a sailor’s life wid a cou- 
sin of my mother’s, who had a small sloop he used 
for fishing along the coast off the Cove of Cork. 

It was on boord the little Shamrock I got my 
say-legs, and, by the same token, many a sharp 
rope’s-ending into the bargain. 

I had plinty to ate, and plinty to drink, and 
plinty of hard work, too, as there were but three 
01 


52 


SEYEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


hands on boord — my cousin, one man, and myself, 
making up the entire crew. 

I was well enough trated, and had no rason to 
complain. 

The sloop was a fast sailer, and a good say -boat, 
and I ought to have been con tinted— but somehow 
it's myself that wasn’t satisfied at all at all. 

I never saw the tall masts of the big ships that 
traded to furrin parts that I didn’t long to clamber 
up their sides, and see if I couldn’t get a berth — 
anything, from captain to cabin-boy, I wasn’t par- 
ticular — on boord one of them. 

One fine day, when the little sloop was high and 
dry, my cousin stepp’d into a shebeen to get a taste 
of the mountain dew, and give me what he called 
my share, which was a dale more pewter than 
whiskey — for it’s mighty little of the latter was 
left in the measure whin he handed it to me ; when 
a tall, spare, good-looking sort of a chap enough, 
with lashings of bright brass buttons on his coat 
and waistcoat, and a smart goold band round his 
peaked cap, who happened to be taking his morn- 
ing’s refreshment at the same time, said to my 
cousin as he emptied his naggin, “Fill that,” says 
he, “onct more, — fill that, and drink wid we.” 

“Never say it again,” says my cousin. “Fill 
and drink’s the word this time with you , and the 
next with we, honest man!” 

“All right!” replied the stranger. 

And fill and drink it was more than onct round, 
you may be on your oath. 

“That’s a smart youngster!” says he wid the 
band and buttons, pointing to me. 

“The boy’s well enough, as a boy,” says my 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


53 


cousin. “He’s strong, handy, and willing, and 
not the sort of a lad to kape where there’s an 
empty larder ; but if he ates well, he works well ; 
so more power to his elbow, and double rations, 
wid all my heart!” 

“That’s the lad for my money!” says the stran- 
ger. “Would you like to take a trip with me, 
youngster?” 

“ What ship do you belong to, sir?” I asked. 

“ That,” says he, going to the door of the public, 
and pointing to a splindid three-master, with the 
stars and stripes at the peak. 

“And where do you sail to, sir?” says I. 

“New York,” replied he. 

“Where’s that, if it’s plasin’ to you, sir?” 
says I. 

“In Amerikay,” says he; “the land of the 
brave, and the home of the free!” 

“ Amerikay !” broke in my cousin. “ My sister’s 
wife’s uncle has a son there — a tall young man, 
badly pock-marked, with a slight cast in his left 
eye, and hair as red as a fox. Lanty O’ Gorman is 
the name he has upon him. He has been there two 
years and better. Mayhap you have met him?” 

“ I dar say I have, ” said the stranger, laughing 
heartily. 

“ Would you take a message to him, sir?” asked 
my cousin. 

“I’d be everlastingly delighted,” says he, “but 
there’s a dale of O’Gormans about; and as most of 
them are pock-marked, squint, and have red heads, 
I’m afraid I’d be bothered to know him. Do you 
think that young shaver would remimber him?” 

“Faith and troth I would, sir,” says I, “by ra- 


54 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


son of the leathering he gave me onct for making 
an April fool of him, telling him the chickens the 
ould hen had hatched from the ducks’ eggs had 
tuck to the water, and if he didn’t hurry and get 
them out of the pond, every mother’s son of them 
would be drownded!” 

“ Wal,” said the stranger, “it’s an almighty pity 
you ain’t there to see him. The man I know of 
the name of O’ Gorman is as rich as mud; and if 
he took a liking to you, he could make your for- 
tune right off the reel in less than no time!” 

“I’d give the worrild to go,” says I. 

“Come, old man,” says the Yankee — I found 
out afterward he was an Amerikan — “ what do you 
say? Will you let this young shaver take a trip 
with me? He shall be well cared for under the 
stars and stripes. I’ll give him fair pay and good 
usage. Fact is, I am in want of a smart lad, who 
has got his say -legs, to wait upon myself and a few 
extra cabin passengers. I like the cut of the boy’s 
jib, so say yes or no — how is it to be? It will be 
for the lad’s good?” 

“ Arrah, good luck to ye, cousin, darlint, let me 
go! It has been the wish of my heart, slapin’ and 
wakin’, this many a long day ! Let me go, and 
sorra a rap I’ll spind of the lashings of goold Cou- 
sin Lanty will give me, but bring every pinny 
home safe and sound, just as he puts it into my 
hand!” 

“You offer fair and honest,” says my cousin. 
“ It’s true for you, it would be for the boy’s good 
■ — far better than his wasting his time dredging 
and coasting about here; but — what would his 
mother say?” 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


55 


“Wal,” said the stranger, “I have done a good 
many pretty considerable difficult things in my 
time, but as to my being able to tell you what his 
mother, or any other female woman of the feminine 
persuasign, would be likely to say , my hand won’t 
run to that; so, rather than play the game out, I’ll 
hand in my cards. What I want to know is, what 
you mean to say to it; and you must be smart 
making up your mind, for the Brother Jonathan 
will trip her anchor bright and early in the morn- 
ing! Yes, sir-r^e !” 

To cut the matter short, boys, the Yankee skip- 
per gave my cousin enough in advance to find me 
in the slops I wanted; and I felt as if I could lep 
over the moon for joy when I saw the ship’s arti- 
cles signed, and myself rated, at fair wages, as 
cabin-boy for the outward and return trips. 

The ould people lived some twenty miles inland, 
so there was no chance of seeing them to bid good- 
by; and maybe that was all for the best, as it 
wasn’t till the hurry and bustle of buying my kit 
was over, and I got fairly on boord, that the 
thought of my father and mother, little Norah and 
Patsey, came across my mind; and when it did, 
the joy I felt at getting the great wish of my heart 
gratified — sailing in an elegant three-master — with 
more people on boord her (she was an emigrant 
ship) than there was in my own native village, and 
a dozen besides — turned into unfeigned sorrow at 
parting from them; and, for the life of me, I 
couldn’t close my eyes all night, because of the 
scalding hot tears that would force their way from 
under the lids. 

But boys are boys, and sorrow sits lightly on 


56 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


young hearts; and it’s a blessin’ it does, for sure 
we get enough of it when we grow older, and, per- 
haps, wiser, and better able to bear it! 

Faith, it was as much as I could do to wonder at 
everything I saw on boord the beautiful clipper — 
for a clipper she was, boys, and could knock off 
her twelve knots an hour as easy as a bird flies. 

The skipper was as good a seaman as ever boxed 
a compass; the crew, barring the skulkers, were 
well trated. As for the “ould soldiers,” the way 
they got hazed and started was — I must use a Yan- 
kee word — a caution! 

We made the Battery at New York in a few 
hours over thirty days. 

I got leave to go on shore with the third mate, 
a mighty dacint young man ; and whin I tould him 
I wanted him to take me to my cousin, by my 
mother’s sister’s side, whose name was O’ Gorman, 
with the small-pox, a squint, and a foxey head, I 
thought he’d taken a seven years’ lase of a laugh, 
and would — unless he split his sides — never do 
anything else but that same for the rest of his born 
days. 

To cut the matter short, he tould me the skipper 
had sould me as chape as a speckled orange! So I 
gave up all hopes of finding my cousin and my for- 
tune ; saw as much as I could of the beautiful city ; 
bought a trifle or two to take home; and, after an- 
other splendid run, was landed, safe and sound, 
onct more on the dear ould Cove of Cork. 

“ Then you saw no ghost in that ship?” says Bos- 
tock. 

“ Faith, I did!” 

“ But you have told us nothing about it!” says I. 


SEVEtf EROZEK SAILORS. 


57 


Wait till a while ago. I tuck my wages, and 
started for the public, where I knew I should find 
my cousin — and right glad he was to see me ; but I 
couldn’t help feeling as if something was wrong 
by the way he looked and answered me, whin I 
asked afther the ould people and little Norah and 
Patsey. 

“ Take a tumbler of punch, now !” says he ; “ and 
we’ll talk of that afterward.” 

“ Not at all,” says I. “ The news, whether good 
or bad, will go better with the punch; so we’ll have 
them together. How is my darlint mother?” 

“Well!” says he. 

“And dad?” I inquired. 

“Well, too!” says he. 

“Thank the Lord for that!” says I. “And the 
little ones?” 

“Happy and hearty!” says he. 

“Thanks be to heaven again!” says I. “But 
wliat’s the matter wid you, at all, man alive?” 

“The matter wid me?” said he. “What would 
be the matter wid me?” said he. 

“Sorra a one of me knows!” replied I. “But 
you look as if you were at a wake widout whiskey !” 

' “ You didn’t hear much about what happened at 

Ballyshevan in Amerikay?” says he. 

“Faith, you are right! Not much more than I 
did about Foxey O’ Gorman, wid his squint and red 
hair!” says I, laughing to think what a fool the 
skipper had made of me. 

“There’s nothing to laugh at here!” says he. 
“ There’s only two things that have been plintiful 
this sason!” 

“Potaties and oats?” says I. 


58 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


“No such luck!” says he. 

“What thin?” I asked. 

“ Famine and faver /” he says pat. 

You might have knocked me down wid a Jack- 
straw, whin I heard those words. I raled back, 
and if it hadn’t been for a binch that was close 
against the wall, which I clutched a hould of, and 
managed to bring myself up with, I’d have fallen 
full length on the floor. 

“ Have a good sup of this!” says he, handing me 
his tumbler of punch; “and don’t take on so,” 
says he. “ You are better off than most of the 
neighbors! Sure death hasn’t knocked at your 
door; and all you love are living — though they 
have had a hard time of it — to welcome you 
back.” 

“You are right,” says I, as I started up, “and 
the sooner I get that welcome the better. What 
am I wasting my time here for, at all at all, whin 
I ought to be there — it’s only twenty miles. It’s 
airly yet, I can be home by nightfall. I have 
promised to return, but I’ve got three days’ lave, so 
I’m off at onct.” 

I won’t kape you on the road, sure it’s longer 
than ever it seemed; but it came to an end at last. 
I forgot all my fatigue whin I opened the door, and 
stepped inside the threshhold ; it was between day 
light and dark — there was no candle burning — but 
I could see the forms of the four people most dear 
to me on earth. An involuntary “ The Vargin be 
praised!” broke from my lips. 

“My son! — my son!” almost screamed my 
mother, and if I had been four boys instead of one 
there wouldn’t have been room enough on me for 


SEVEN' FROZEN SAILORS. 


59 


the kisses they all wanted to give me at the same 
time. 

Whin the first great joy of our meeting was over, 
I began to ask pardon for quitting ould Ireland 
widout their lave. 

“ Don’t spake about it, darlint,” said my mother; 
thin, pointing upward, she added, mighty solemn, 
“ Glory be to Him, it was His will, and it was the 
best day’s work ever you did. Tell him Avhat has 
happened.” 

“I will,” said my father. “You see, Phil, my 
son, soon after you sailed for Amerikay, the old 
master died, and the estate came into the hands of 
his nephew, a wild harum-scarum sort of a chap, 
that kapes the hoith of company with the quality 
and rich people in London and Paris, and the lord 
knows where else besides ; but never sets his foot, 
nor spinds a skurrick here, where the money that 
pays for his houses, and carriages, and race-horses, 
and the wine his foine friends drinks — when his 
tenants is starving — comes from. Seeing how 
things were likely to go, the ould agent threw up 
his place rather than rack the tenants any further; 
this just suited my gintleman, who sent over a new 
one, a hard man, wid a heart of stone, and he 
drove the poor craytures as a wolf would drive a 
flock of shape; they did their best, till their crops 
failed, to kape their bits of farms ; but then — God 
help them ! they were dead bate — sure the famine 
came, and the famine brought on the faver ; they 
couldn’t pay; they were evicted by dozens; and 
the evictions brought on something worse than the 
famine or faver — something they hungered and 
thirsted for more than mate and dhrink.” 


60 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


“What was that, father dear?” 

“ Revinge /” says he. 

“Bevinge! father — revinge!” I muttered. 

“ Yis,” says he; “but hush! spake low, darlin’ ! 
The boys wint out! Well, after that, it’s little 
the moon or stars were wanted to light up the night 
while there was a full barn on the estate. 

“ The country is overrun by the po-lice and the 
sojers; but it is small good they have done, or are 
likely to do. Starving men don’t care much for 
stale or lead; but ” 

Here he paused, and raised his hand. 

“Hush! there’s futsteps on the road, and me 
talking loud enough to be heard a mile off.” 

As he spoke, he rose, went stealthily to the door, 
opened it, and looked out. 

“ There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s naither the 
peelers nor the sogers, it’s frinds that’s coming.” 

As he wint back to his sate, a fine, handsome 
young fellow brought in a lovely girl, exclaiming, 
as he entered, “God save all here.” 

“Amen for that same kindly wish,” was our 
answer. 

They were ould frinds and playmates, the son 
and daughter of two of the snuggest farmers on the 
estate ; and I well knew before I sailed for Amer- 
ikay they were engaged to be married. 

“I wasn’t wrong,” said the young man, as he 
looked hard at me, “it is Phil himself. How’s 
every bit of you? sure it’s right glad I am to see 
you here this blessed night.” 

“And me, too, Phil,” said pretty Mary Sheean, 
as she took the hand young O’Bourke left free, 
and shook it warmly. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


61 


We sat for, maybe, an hour or more, talking 
over ould times; and it was with a sad heart I lis- 
tened to the bad news — for bad enough it was! 

O’Rourke tould me the rason of his visit was to 
let me know he and Mary had made up their minds 
to sail for Amerikay, where they had some frinds 
doing well, and it was agreed they would go as 
steerage passengers with me, three days after date, 
in the clipper ship, George Washington. 

As they rose to depart, and were bidding us a 
kind good-night, a low whistle outside caused us 
all to start. O’Rourke drew himself up, and com- 
pressed his lips tightly, as he listened for a repeti- 
tion of the signal. 

Mary turned deathly pale, and clutched her 
sweetheart’s arm convulsively. 

The whistle was repeated. 

Miles stooped down, kissed the trembling girl’s 
forehead, and, addressing me, hastily said, “Phil, 
tired as you must be, I know I can trust to you to 
see Mary safe home.” 

“ Why not do so yourself?” asked I. 

“Because I am called, and must obey.” 

“Are the boys out to-night?” inquired my 
father. 

“ They are, and will be till ” 

“ When? — where?” demanded my mother. 

“No matter,” said O’Rourke, “you will know- 
soon enough. Perhaps too soon.” 

The whistle was heard for the third time. 
O’Rourke rushed from the cottage, exclaiming, 
“Heaven guard you all!” 

After the lapse of a few minutes, I started with 
Mary for her father’s house. As I left her, look- 


62 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


ing very sad, at the door, I told her to be sure to 
see that O’Rourke was not too late to sail wid me. 

“ Little fear of that,” said she; “ since his father 
has been ordered to quit the farm, to make way for 
a friend of the new agent’s, he’ll be glad to lave 
the place forever.” 

I turned to go home, with a sad heart. 

It was the end of harvest-time ; the weather was 
very sultry, and the night cloudy and overcast. 

I thought, as I hurried home, we should soon 
have a heavy thunder-storm, and fancied the sum- 
mer lightning was more vivid than usual. 

Just as I reached my father’s door, I was star- 
tled by the sudden flashing of a fierce flame in the 
direction of the mansion of the new heir to the 
splendid estate he inherited from his uncle. 

I doubted for a moment, but then was perfectly 
sartain the Hall was on fire. 

I dashed off at the top of my speed, taking the 
nearest cut across the fields to the scene of the con- 
flagrashun. 

As I was pelting along, I heard the fire-bell 
sounding from the police barracks, but I got to the 
place before the sogers or peelers had a chance of 
reaching it. 

A glance convinced me the ould place was 
doomed; the flames had burst through the lower 
windows, and were carried by the lattice-work, that 
reached high above the portico, to the upper story. 

While I was looking at the blazing pile, a horse- 
man galloped at full speed up the avenue. Just 
as he had almost reached the Hall door, and was 
reining in his horse to dismount, four or five dark 
figures appeared to spring suddenly out of the 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


63 


ground, and I heard the report of fire-arms — two 
distinct shots I could swear to. At the first, one 
of the party, who sought to intercept the mounted 
man, fell ; at the second, the rider rolled from his 
saddle heavily to the ground, and then the other 
figures disappeared as suddenly as they had at first 
sprung up. 

I was so thunderstruck, that for some few min- 
utes I could not stir from the spot. 

Seeing no sign of the approach of the military or 
police, curiosity, or some strong feeling, got the 
better of my prudence, and I hurried forward to 
the scene of slaughter, for such in my heart I felt 
it was — in the case of at least of one of the fallen 
men. And there, with the lurid light of the burn- 
ing building flashing across his deathlike face, and 
the purple blood welling up from a wound in his 
chest through his cambric shirt-frill, lay, stretched 
in death, the newly appointed agent, and, close 
beside him, O’Kourke, still living, but drawing 
every breath with such difficulty that I felt certain 
his last hour had come. 

I raised his head, and spoke to him. He 
knew my voice, and, by a superhuman effort, man- 
aged to support himself on his elbow, as he took a 
small purse from his breast-pocket; he placed it in 
my hand, and said, “ Phil, darlin’, I know you’ve 
the brave and thrue heart, though it’s only a boy 
you are. Listen to my last words. Kape my se- 
cret, for my sake ; never let on to man or mortial 
you saw me here. Give that purse to Mary — take 
her to herfrinds in Amerikay — she’ll never hear of 
this there, and may larn in time to forget me. 
Tell her we shall meet in a better place ; and hark ! 


64 


SEVEtf FROZEN SAILORS. 


my eyes are growing dark, but I can hear well 
enough, there are futsteps — they are coming this 
way; run, for your life; if you are found here, you 
will die on the gallows, and that would break your 
poor old father and mother’s hearts! Bless you, 
Phil, alanna! Remember my last words, and, as 
you hope for mercy, do my bidding!” 

He drew a deep sigh, fell heavily from my arms, 
rolled over on his side, and there — with the dead 
agent’s fixed and glassy eyes staring the frightful 
stare of death straight at ljim — lay cowld and still ! 

The sound of the futsteps came nearer and 
nearer. I started at my best speed for home. 
When I stepped into the house, the children had 
been put to bed, but the ould people were still 
talking by the dim light of the nearly burnt-out 
turf fire. I wished them good-night, plading fa- 
taigue, and reached my small room without their 
having an opportunity of noticing the state of 
alarm and agitation I was in. 

The next day was an awful one for me. The 
violent death of the middleman was in every one’s 
mouth ; but it was some relief to find no mention 
was made of the finding the corpse of poor 
O’Rourke. 

I concluded the footsteps we had both heard 
were those of some of his associates, and that they 
had carried off and concealed his body. 

I fulfilled O’Rourke’s wishes to the best of my 
power; saw Mary Sheean safe on boord ship, put 
her in the care of a dacent, middle-aged country- 
woman of her own — and as I was assuring her, in 
O’Rourke’s words, that he would soon join her, 
all I had to say was cut short by the arrival of a 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


65 


parcel of peelers on boord, and the rason of their 
coming was the assassination of the agent had been 
discovered. O’Rourke was missing, and so suspi- 
cion fell on him — and there was a reward of two 
hundred pounds offered for him. It was thought 
possible he might be on boord the George Wash- 
ington , and they had come, with a full description 
of his person, to sarch the ship. 

The passengers — and it was a tadeous job — were 
all paraded — over three hundred in the steerage, 
let alone the cabin and the crew — every part of the 
ship was overhauled, but, as may naturally be sup- 
posed, no Miles O’Rourke was found. 

I need scarcely tell yez, boys, what a relief that 
was to pretty Mary Sheean and myself. 

When the police-officers had left the George 
Washington , she beckoned me to her, and whis- 
pered, “Thanks be to the Lord he was not on 
boord! though I know he would never take any 
man’s life; still, as he was out that night, it 
would have gone hard wid him. But, never fear, 
he’ll come by the next ship; and so I’ll wait and 
watch for him at New York. There’s his box — ■ 
take care of it for him till we get there ; and see, 
here’ s the kay — mind that, too ; maybe I’ d lose it. ” 

I hadn’t the heart to undecaive her, so I an- 
swered her as cheerfully as I could, put the kay in 
my pocket and the box in my locker, and went 
about my business, wid a mighty heavy heart en- 
tirely. 

All went on smoothly enough — but about the 
tenth day after we sailed, a report got afloat that 
the ship was haunted. 

At first, the captain only laughed at such an 
5 


66 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


absurd rumor; but finding the men believed it, 
and went unwillingly about their duty after dark, 
unless in couples, he set to work to find out who 
had been the first person to circulate the story. 

After a deal of dodging and prevarication, it was 
traced to black Sam, the nigger cook. 

The skipper called the ould darky up to the 
quarter-deck, and then, in the hearing of the cabin- 
passengers and most of the crew, the cook stated, 
afther we had been at say for a few days, that one 
night, as he was dozing in the caboose, he was 
startled by the appearance of a tall figure, with a 
face as pallid as death, noiselessly entering 
through the half-open door. The ghcfst — for such 
Sam was willing to swear it was, to use his own 
words, “ on a stack of bibles as high as the main 
topmast” — had on a blood-stained shroud. It 
slowly approached the terror-stricken cook, who, 
fearing it intended to do him some bodily harrum, 
sprang from his bunk, and yell’d loudly for assis- 
tance. At the first sound of Sam’s voice, the 
lamp wint out of itself, and the ghost vanished. 

Several sailors bore testimony to hearing the 
cook screaming for help — to the fearful state of 
fright he was in ; and, as they could see no trace 
of the apparition Sam so minutely described, con- 
firmed his report as to the sudden disappearance 
of the supernatural intruder. 

This was the origin of the report; but, some 
days after, at least half a dozen seamen declared 
they had seen the self-same spectre gliding about 
the deck soon after midnight; and among them 
the boatswain, as brave a fellow as ever bran- 
dished a rope’s-end, declared that, upon waking 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


67 


suddenly one night, he saw the ghost sated on his 
locker, either imitating the action of a person 
ating voraciously, or making a series of such hor- 
ribly ugly grimaces as would have done honor to 
Vanity Fair itself. 

The whole affair was considered a good joke by 
the skipper and cabin passengers; but those in the 
steerage and the ship’s crew placed implicit confi- 
dence in the cook’s narrative, corroborated and sup- 
ported as it was by the sailors and the boatswain. 

For my part, I had no faith in any worse sper- 
rits than those than that come out of a bottle, or, 
maybe, a hogshead, and I lost no chance of trot- 
ting out the friends of the ghost. 

But my turn had to come — and come it did, 
with a vingeance. 

One night, boy -like, I had been braggin’ might- 
ily loud about my courage. Ould Sam offered to 
bet his three days’ grog against mine I daren’t 
slape in the caboose he had deserted since he saw 
the sperrit that same night. 

The wager was made, and I turned in, thinking 
what a laugh I should have against the ould dar- 
ky when I handed him back his complement of 
rum. 

I’ll do the ould nagur the justice to say, whin I 
accepted the wager, he offered to let me off ; and, 
when he found I was determined to stick to it, he 
warned me, with a sigh that sounded like a groan, 
I had much better not; but anyway, happen what 
might, he hoped I would hould him harmless, and 
forgive him for my misfortune, if any should over- 
take me. 

Wid a smile, bedad ! I promised to do so, and, 


68 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


when the time came, turned into the bunk, and 
was soon fast aslape. 

How long this lasted, I don’t know ; but I was 
suddenly awoke by feeling a cowld, clammy hand 
passing over my face, and whin I opened my pay- 
pers, judge of my dread whin I saw the lank spec- 
tre I had been making a joke of standing by my 
side. Bedad! if St. Patrick’s Cathedral was stuck 
in my throat, I couldn’t have felt more nearly 
choked. The crature, whatever it was, seemed 
as tall as the manemast, and as thin as a rasher 
of wind. 

Every hair on my head sprang up, and my eyes 
seemed starting out of their sockets to meet those 
of the ghost, which were as big as saucers, and 
were fixed on mine with a look that seemed to go 
through and through them, and come out at the 
back of my head. 

I tried to cry out, but I couldn’t; but if my 
tongue couldn’t chatter, my teeth could. If the 
big skeleton’s bones had been put in an empty 
cask, and well shuck up by a couple of strong min, 
they couldn’t have made a bigger noise than my 
jaws did. 

I tried my hardest to remimber and reharse a 
prayer; but sorrow the taste of one would come 
into my head. Shure, everything dacent was 
frightened clane out of it. The only good thing I 
could call to mind was what my mother taught me 
to say before males. I thought that was better 
than nothing, so I whispered out, while I was 
shivering with the fear that was upon me, “ For 
what I am going to recave, may the Lord make 
me truly thankful!” 





u 


11 


THE CRATURE, WHATEVER IT WAS, SEEMED AS TALL AS THE MAINMAST, 








SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


69 


Whin I had done, the ghost’s jaws moved, and, 
in a voice so hoarse and hollow, that it might have 
come from the bottom of a churchyard vault, half- 
moaned, half-groaned, “It’s grace you’re saying, 
you imperint young blaggard!” 

“It is,” says I, trimbling all over. “That 
is, if it’s not displasing to your honor’s lord- 
ship. ” 

“That depinds,” says he, “upon what you are 
going to give me to ate after it.” 

“ Ate!” says I. “ Why, thin, be good to us! can 
you ate?” 

“Thry me,” says he, “and you’ll see whether I 
can or not; and make haste, for my time’s short! 
I must go down agin almost immadiately, and it 
isn’t the bit or sup I’ve had for near onto five 
days; and by rason of that, although I was a 
strong man once, it’s nearly gone I am!” 

“Gone where?” I asked. 

“To my grave,” says he. 

“Bad cess to them, whoever they were, that 
ought to have done it, and didn’t! Haven’t they 
buried you yet?” I inquired. 

“ What would they bury me for?” says he. 

“It’s customary with corpses where I come 
from,” I answered. 

“I come from the same place,” says he. “They 
are bad enough there, in all conscience — more par- 
ticularly, by the same token, the middlemen, 
tithe-proctors, and excisemen; but they didn’t 
bury live min in my time,” says he. 

“ But they did dead ones,” says I. 

“Of coorse,” he assented. “And it’s you that 
will have to bury me mighty soon, unless ” 


70 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“ Unless what?” I demanded, in a bigger fright 
than ever at the thought of having to turn sexton 
to a sperrit. 

“ Well, unless you give me something to ate and 
drink,” says he. 

“ Take all there is in that locker, ” says I, “ and 
welcome — and be off out of this.” 

“ Don’t say it agin,” says he; and he opened 
the locker, and walked into the cook’s store like a 
shark that had been kaping a six weeks’ fast. 

It was wonderful to see how the tears stood in 
the poor ghost’s eyes, how his jaws worked, and 
his throat swelled, as he swallowed mouthful after 
mouthful, the bigness of a big man’s fist. In a 
few minutes he turned to me, and said, “ Take my 
blessing for this, Phil!” 

I was startled to hear the ghost call me by my 
own name ; but as I didn’t want to encourage him 
to kape on visiting terms, I thought it wouldn’t 
do to let him become too familiar, so I said, 
mighty stiff like, “ Fill yourself, honest spirit, as 
much as you plase, but don’t be Phil-ing me — I 
don’t like such freedom on a short acquaintance — 
and you are no friend of mine,” says I. 

“I was onct,” he replied. 

“ When?” asked I. 

“ When we were in the ould counthry,” says he. 
“When you tuck the purse from me for Mary 
Sheean, and promised to spake the last words I 
spoke to her.” 

When I heard him say that, all my ould fears 
came over me fifty times stronger than ever, for 
hadn’t I broken my promise to O’Kourke? And I 
could see now, from the family likeness, this was 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 71 

his spirit ; and instead of telling her all he said, 
only given half his message to poor Mary ! 

“Oh, be me sowl, good ghost!” says I. 

“If I’m a ghost, I’m ” 

He made a long pause, so I spoke. 

“Never mind what,” says I. “I don’t want to 
axe any post-mortem questions ” 

“ Blest /” says he. 

“That’s a great relief entirely,” says I. “But 
if you are blessed, I’m no fit company for you; so 
never mind your manners — don’t stay to bid me 
good-by, but go at onct!” 

“You don’t want me to stay?” says he. 

“ I don’t,” I replied. 

“ You are more changed than I am,” he added. 

“I shouldn’t wonder,” says I, “seeing the sort 
of company I am in.” 

“Do you find fault with my company?” asked 
he. 

“ I do, ” says I. 

“And you wish me to go — down below again?” 

“As soon as convanient,” says I. 

“Well, Philip Donavan,” says he, “aither I or 
you are mortially changed.” 

“ It’s you,” says I. “ My turn hasn’t come yet, 
but it will, all in good time.” 

“ Phil Donovan, do you know who you are spak- 
ing to?” 

“Faix I do, to my sorrow!” says I; “to Miles 
O’Rourke’s ghost!” 

“Miles O’Rourke’s ghost!” says he. 

“Dickens a doubt of it!” says I. “Didn’t I 
see his body lying stark and dead, wid the blood 
welling out in gallons from his heart?” 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


72 


“It wasn’t my heart, man alive — it was my 
shoulder; and shure it was the loss of that same 
that made me faint! Take a hould of my hand, 
if you doubt me! There’s little left of it but skin 
and bone; but it’s human still!” 

It was moightily against my own wish, and wid 
a cowld shiver running down my back, I did as he 
asked ; but whin I did catch a hould of his fist, 
ghost or no ghost, he nearly made mine into a jelly 
wid the squeeze he gave it. 

“Murther alive!” says I. 

“Hould your whist! Bemember, I’m a ghost!” 
says he. 

“That’s thrue for you!” says I; “and you must 
continue one for the rest of the voyage, or maybe 
you will be trated as something worse!” 

“What’s that?” he asked. 

“A stowaway!” says I. “The skipper’s a 
good man enough ; but if he discovers you, the way 
he’ll sarve you will be awful!” 

“What will he do?” inquired he. 

“ Give you thirty -nine and land you!” says I. 

“Land me where?” 

“In the middle of the say!” says I. 

“Murther!” says he. 

“Moighty like it,” says I; “but he’ll do it!” 

“I’d have to give up the ghost then!” says he. 

“You would, in airnest!” I tould him. “But 
you mustn’t do it yet. Tell me how you come on 
boord?” 

“I will,” says he. “When the boys found me, 
I had only a flesh wound, and had fainted from 
loss of blood. They got a car, and smuggled me 
down to Cork. I had scarcely set my fut on deck. 


SEVEH FROZEN SAILORS. 


73 


as the peelers came rowing up the side. When the 
order was given to muster all hands, I made my 
way to the hould, and hid myself in the straw in 
an empty crate in the darkest corner of the place. 
The men searched pretty closely, but, as good luck 
would have it, they passed by my hiding-place.” 

“ You must go back to it. But now, Miles 
O’Rourke, answer me one question, and, as you 
are a man, answer it truly!” 

“ What is it?” 

“ Did you kill the agint?” 

Wake as was O’Rourke, he stood grandly up; 
the ould honest, proud look came into his pale, 
wasted, but still handsome face ; and pointing his 
long, thin finger to heaven, he said, in a deep, low 
tone, the earnestness of which I shall never forget 
to my dying day, “ As I hope for justice some day 
here , and mercy hereafter , I did not!” 

The hug I gave him would have broken many a 
strong man’s ribs, let alone a ghost’s; but I 
couldn’t help it. Bedad, if I had been a Roosian 
bear itself, that hug would have been a credit to 
me. 

“ What on earth am I to do?” asked Miles. 

“ Anything you plase,” says I, “whin you get 
there! But you are on the water now, worse luck 
- — and that’s what bothers me. I wouldn’t give 
a thrawneen for your life, if you are discovered 
and recognized as Miles O’Rourke. There’s two 
hundred pounds reward offered for you, and the 
evidence seems pretty strong against you.” 

“How would they know me?” says he. “You 
didn’t — and no wonder! Shure whin I came on 
boord I weighed fourteen stone; and now, ten stone 


74 SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 

in the one scale would pitch me up to the ceiling 
out of the other!” 

“That’s thrue enough,” says I; “ but you must 
bear in mind I tuck you for somebody else’s ghost, 
and didn’t make any allowance for the starving 
you have had, which, particularly as a stowaway, 
they would be sure to do. But now you must get 
back to the liould. I’ll contrive to drop half my 
rations and a trifle of grog down every day — see 
Mary, and consult with her. Shure, one woman’s 
wit is worth a dozen men’s in a case like this.” 

“ But ” says he. 

“ Hush !” says I ; “I hear futsteps. We are in a 
tight place now! There’s only one chance for us: 
I’m aslape, and you’re a ghost again!” 

I fell back in my bunk, and began snoring like a 
porker wid the influenzey, just as the door opened, 
and the ould nagur poked in his black woolly mop. 

Miles stood up to his full height, and raised his 
hands above his head, as if he was going to pounce 
upon him. 

The poor cook, terrified beyond measure, fell 
down as flat as a flounder on his face, shrieking 
out at the top of his voice, “The ghost! — the 
ghost!” 

O’Rourke stepped over his body, and hurried 
back to his hiding-place, unseen by the bewildered 
sailors. 

I pretended to awake from a sound slape, and 
had the pleasure of hearing the toughest yarn that 
ever was spun, from Sam, in which he gave a soul- 
thrilling description of his encounter and hand-to- 
hand fight with the dreadful apparition. 

I saw Mary the next morning, and broke the 


SEVEH PROZEK SAILOKS. 


75 


news of O’Rourke’s being on board as gently as I 
could. Our plans were soon laid. By the time 
we came to an anchor off New York, I contrived to 
drop, unseen by any one, a bundle, containing a 
suit of O’Rourke’s clothes, shaving materials, and 
a small looking-glass, down the hold. 

When the passengers were paraded, the police- 
officer, who had remained on board, was too much 
engaged reading the following description of a sup- 
posed murderer to pay much attention to pretty 
Mary Sheean, or the poor, pale, stooping invalid 
she was supporting. 

“ Two hundred pounds reward for the apprehen- 
sion of Miles O’Rourke. Description. — Florid 
face, curling brown hair, large and muscular limbs, 
finely developed chest. Height, about six feet; 
weight, rather under fourteen stone.” 

Unlike as the half-starved wreck was to what 
he had been when he came on boord, I was in an 
agony of fear, until I saw Mary safely landed on 
the Battery, convulsively grasping the hand of the 
SHIP’S GHOST. 

“Yes, Paddy,” says the doctor, “ that’s all very 
cheerful and entertaining, but decidedly unscien- 
tific, and you didn’t tell us how you got here.” 

“Not he!” said Scudds, growling; “I thought it 
war going to be a real ghost.” 

“I say, look at him!” said Bostock. 

But nobody would stop to look at him; the men 
shuffling off once more — all but the doctor and my- 
self — as that figure regularly melted away before 


76 


SEVEtf FROZEH SAILORS. 


our eyes — body, bones, clothes, everything; and 
at the end of five minutes there was nothing 
there but a little dust and some clear ice. 

“ It’s very wonderful!” the doctor said; “but it 
won’t do. We must find another, take him up 
carefully, and not thaw him out, but get him back 
to Hull in his ice, like a glass case.” 

“Come back, lads; the Irishman’s gone,” I 
said ; and they came back slowly ; and we had to 
set up the tent in a fresh place, and, while we did 
it, the doctor found another body, and set us to 
work to get it out. 

We got this one out capitally ; the ice running 
like in a grain; and after six hours’ hard work, 
there lay the body, like an ornament in a glass 
paper-weight, and the doctor was delighted. 

About two hours after, as we were all sitting to- 
gether in the tent, we heard a sharp crack, and 
started; but the doctor said it was only the ice 
splitting with the heat of the sun; and so it 
proved, for five minutes after, in came a gaunt, 
weird-looking figure, with a strange stare in his 
glimmering, gray eyes; a wild toss in his long 
yellow hair and beard, both of which were dashed 
with patches of white, that looked as though the 
color had changed by damp or mildew, or the bit- 
ter, searching cold. With such a dreamy, far-off 
gaze, he looked beyond the men who sat opposite, 
that they turned involuntarily and glanced over 
their shoulders, as though they expected to see 
something uncanny peering at them from behind. 
His long limbs and wiry frame, together with this 
strange, eerie expression, give him the air of some 
old viking or marauding Jute come to life again, 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


77 


and ready to recite a Norse rune , or to repeat a 
mystic saga of the deep, impenetrable North. 

“Eh,” he said, “I was just thinkin’ a bit aboot 
the time when I went wi’ Captain Parry to his ex- 
pedition.” 

“Why, you weren’t with Captain Parry?” said 
the doctor. 

“It’s aboot myseP I meant to tel ye, if ye’ll 
no’ be so clever wi’ contradictin’, and I say once 
more — (here he glowered into space, as though he 
saw something a long way off) — I was thinking 
about a man I met wi’ in about eighty-two degrees 
o’ latitude, when I was out wi’ Captain Parry on 
the third expedition of the Heda , in 1827, at 
which time I was no more than forty year old.” 

“ Forty in 1827 !” said the doctor. “ Why, how 
old do you make yourself?” 

“ I’ 11 no mak’ myseV any age ; but let us — no’ to 
be particular to a year or so — put me down at 
seventy-six or seventy-eight.” 

“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed Scudds. “Why, man, 
you’re not above fifty.” 

“ Weel, if ye maun tell my story yersels — may- 
be ye’ll gi’e me leave to turn in, or light my pipe. 
I’ll no’ speak if ye’ve no wish to hear; but now I 
mind that I’m eighty-four year old last Thursday 
was a week, for I was four-and-twenty when I first 
had ten years’ sleep at Slievochan.” 

The man’s eyes were fixed on space, as though 
he saw all that he was about to narrate going on in 
some strange way in the dim distance ; and except 
an occasional grunt of interest, a deep-drawn 
breath, or the refilling and relighting of a pipe, all 
was still as he went on. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE SCOTCH SAILOR’S YARN. 

All about Slievochan, there was no lassie like 
Maggie Miller. Her father was a kind o’ over- 
looker to the Laird o’ Taggart, and so was reck- 
oned weel-to-do. He was an elder o’ the kirk, too, 
mind ye, and had a farm o’ his ain — or what was 
called a farm, though it was no mair than might 
be a sma’ holding, with a kye or twa, and fowls 
and live-stock, and a bit o’ pasture, and eneugh to 
butter the bannocks and give a flavor to the par- 
ritch ; so that he was called a weel-to-do man. I 
doubt if any of ye know Slievochan; and it’s no 
deal likely ye would, for it’s but a by -place 
where, down to the village, a few fisher-bodies 
live; and up beyant the hills an’ the cliff is the 
sma’ farmers and the laird’s folk, with just the 
kirk an’ the bit shops, and beyond that the kirk 
itself, weel out o’ sight o’ the little whusky shop ; 
and beyant the widow Gillespie’s “Herrin’ P>oat 
Inn,” where our fishers go at times, when they 
ha’e drunk out the ale at their own place, “The 
Coil,” or, maybe, tasted a runnel o’ .hollands or 
brandy, that has no paid the exciseman, or got the 
King’s mark upo’ it. 

For there’s strange ways amang the fisherfolk, 
and between them and the village is a wide differ- 
78 


SEVEtf FROZEN SAILORS. ' 


79 


ence; though you’ll mind that some o’ the bodies 
wi’ a boat o’ their ain and a cottage that’s as well 
keepit as they that was built by the laird himsel’ 
— and perhaps a store o’ claes and linen, and 
household goods, and a bit o’ siller put by at in- 
terest — may hold up their heads even wi’ men like 
Donald Miller, or may speer a word to the minis- 
ter, or even ask him to taste a glass of eau-de-vie , 
when he gaes doon for pastoral veesitation. But, 
hoot! I’m clavering o’ the old place as it was 
above fifty years ago, when I was workin’ wi’ my 
uncle, Ivan Dhu, and my Aunt Tibby sat at the 
door, knit, knit, knitting, as she watched for our 
cornin’ hame, and went in to make the parritcli or 
skim the sheep’s-head broth, directly the jib o’ 
the Robert Bruce cocked over the ridge, and came 
tackin’ round the Ness o’ Slievochan, with uncle 
and me looking to the tackle and the gear, and liiy 
braw young cousin Bab at the tiller, wi’ his bonnie 
fair face an’ clustering curls, all blowing in the 
breeze that lifted us out o’ the surf, and sent us in 
with a whistle an’ a swirl, till the keel was ready 
to grate upon the beach. Bab was only eighteen, 
and we were great friends —though I was an or- 
phan bairn, and Uncle Ivan had taken me and 
brought me up —so that his boy might have been 
jealous, but there was no jealousy in him. Uncle 
was a bachelor when I first went to him, a little 
raw lad, from Inverness, and I’d learnt to manage 
a boat and do fisherman’s work before Bab came, 
so that I grew to be a strapping lad, and was able 
to teach him in his turn. We loved each other 
weel, Bab and I ; and quiet Auntie Tibbie used to 
sit knitting, and watch us both with a smile j and 


80 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


silent Uncle Ivan, with his great limbs, and dark 
face, and black locks — though he gave me to know 
that Eab would have the boat one day, if not a 
bigger one or two — would grip my hand and say, 
“ Stick to the laddie, if aught suld happen, Sandy; 
for if ye’re no my son, ye’re next to him, and not 
much further frae my heart.” 

Weel — but about Maggie Miller! Her father, 
you observe, was a man o’ some substance, and 
one trusted by the laird; so that the minister, and 
the bailie o’ the nearest town, an’ Mrs. Gillespie, 
an’ the farmers all, ca’d him Mister; and my Uncle 
Ivan, who had his pounds away in the bank, ca’d 
him Mister, too, and would send me or Eab up 
with a creel o’ fish when we had a fine take, now 
and then; so that we were on a footing of visitors; 
and Maggie would stand and laugh and talk with 
me, and would gie Eab a blink, and a rose-blush, 
and a smile that made us all laugh taegither, till I 
used to wonder why it was that I wasn’t one of 
Maggie’s lovers — of which she had three already, 
not counting Eab, who was two years younger 
than she, and, of course, was lookin’ at her as a 
boy of eighteen always looks at a girl of twenty, 
too shy to speak, and too much in love to keep si- 
lent, and so talking to anybody who’ll listen to 
him, which in Eab’s case was me. 

It wasn’t much in my mind that the boy loved 
her, but someway I’d got used to thinking of him 
and her at the same time; and many a time I’ve 
brought her home some trifle that I got from one 
of the coastmen — when they brought in a runlet or 
two of spirits, or lace, and tabacker — some French 
gewgaw or a handkerchief ; and a good deal of my 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


81 


spare money went that way, for Uncle Ivan kept 
ns pretty short of spending. It was like giving it 
to Rab, I thought; but yet I noticed once or twice 
that the boy looked serious when I showed him 
anything to give to Maggie, though I often asked 
him if he’d give it to her himself. 

Maybe I’d ha’ been less easy if there had 
seemed to me more than a lad’s liking and a las- 
sie’s pleasure, that meant little of lasting; for 
there were two men, if not three, hankering about 
Donald Miller’s house such times as they could 
make excuse to gae there, an’ one o’ them made 
believe often enough, for he was head keeper to 
the laird on some shootin’s that lay an hour’s stout 
walking from Slievaloch ; an’ now it was a couple 
o’ rabbits for Mistress Miller, or a word or twa 
with Donald about the bit cover for game beyond 
the big house ; but a’ the time he sat an’ smoked 
his tabacker, or took a sup o’ parritch or sowans, 
or a dish o’ herrin’, he’d have an eye to Maggie. 
An evil eye it was, too, for he was a lowerin’ carl, 
and ’twas said that he was more poacher than 
keeper; while some folk (and I was one) knew 
well that there was anither business brought him 
round toward Slievaloch. I shame to say it, but 
at that time — ye ken I speak of nigh sixty year 
ago — there was a smoke to be seen coming out 
frae a neuk i’ the hills at a wild place where there 
seemed to be naething but granite and bracken, 
and a shanty or two, for shelter to the men quar- 
rying the granite. But it wasna frae the huts that 
the smoke rose. A good two mile awa’ there was 
a stone cottie, more like a cave, as though it had 
been burrowed out by wind and water, and got 
6 


82 


SEVEir FROZEN SAILORS. 


closed in wi’ boulders o’ rock, and covered with 
earth and broom, so that naebody could see how it 
led by a hole i’ the prong o’ the hill to just sic 
anither hut, and neither of the twa to be seen, ex- 
cept by goin’ o’er the hill-side. In this second 
one there was a fire smoulderin’ under a furnace, 
and a’ the place dark and smoky, and fu’ o’ the 
reek o’ sma’ -still whisky, that had nae paid the 
king’s duty; an’ on a cowhide i’ the corner 
crouched auld Birnie, as blear and withered as a 
dried haddie, waitin’ for his wife to come trudgin’ 
back wi’ silver shillin’ s and the empty leather bot- 
tle of twa gallons that she’ d carried out full i’ the 
mornin’, under her lang, patched cloak, or hid 
awa’ in the loose kindlin’ wood at the bottom o’ 
the rieketin’ cart. It was suspected that Rory 
Smith, the keeper, was in league wi’ auld Birnie in 
this sma’ still, and that both he an’ the o’erseer o’ 
the quarrymen — a Welsh body o’ the name o’ 
Preece— knew weel enough what went wi’ the 
whisky. The two men were as unlike as a raven 
and an owl; Smith bein’ suspectit of half gipsy 
blood — though few men daur say so to his face, for 
he’d a heavy hand an’ a look in his face that 
boded mischief — while Preece was a slow, heavy- 
eyed, quiet body, short an’ square-built, and wi’ a 
still tongue an’ decent, careful ways, that yet kept 
his rough men in order, and got him speech of the 
tradefolk at the village where he lodged such times 
as he wasna’ up at the quarry. 

These were the twa that went each in his own 
fashion to visit Donald Miller, and to cast an eye 
on Maggie; but neither o’ them could boast of 
much encouragement, least of all the keeper, who 


SEVERN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


83 


saw that the lassie shrank from him, and would 
hae no word to say when he tried to win her wi’ 
owches, an’ fairin’ s, an’ even costlier gifs frae 
Edinbro’ itsel’, which she refused, say in’ he 
maun keep them till he foun’ a lassie o’ his ain. 
Preece thought it mare prudent to wait till Smith 
was out o’ the way; an’ both of them, as I foun’ 
out after long years, were jealous o’ me for seemin’ 
to find mair favor wi’ Maggie, an’ carry in’ her the 
little presents that I told ye of, though never a 
word o’ love-making passed my lips ; and perhaps 
baith o’ us thought more o’ my cousin Rab than o’ 
each other, though had it nae been for Rab, mind 
ye, I’ll no say that there’ d been so clear a stage 
for the other twa if Maggie had been as winsome 
when I went to pay my respects to her parents, 
and laughed wi’ her at the door. 

Weel, it was just on one o’ the occasions when I 
was on my way to the house, one evening in the 
airly summer, carrying with me a gaudy necklace 
o’ shining beads that I’d bought of a packman at 
Farmer Nicol’s shearin’, whaur I’d been the day 
before. I’d shown the toy to my step-mother, 
and uncle, and to Rab too, and had asked him to 
take it to Maggie himsel’ ; but he put me off, say- 
in’ that he’d rather not be amang them that was 
gi’en and gi’en sma’ things, for he’d gied her the 
best o’ himsel’ a’ reedy. It was, maybe, to ponder 
over these words that I took the way up the steep 
bye-path that led up the beach, an’ so zig-zag along^ 
the cliif’s edge. There was a sort o’ neuk beside 
a turn o’ this path, where was a big stane, that 
one might sit upon, and so lose sight o’ everything 
but the distant sea an’ the beach below, to which 


84 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


the rocks shelved down, rugged an’ bare in places, 
an’ in others wi’ a toss an’ tangle o’ weed and 
brushwood, where there was a hollow in the face 
of the cliff. 

There I sat, an’ sat, and felt all strange an’ 
drowsy, dreamin’ about Rab an’ Maggie, but not 
rightly thinking o’ anything; but holding in my 
hand the bauble that I had taken out o’ my pocket 
to look at. Night was cornin’ down quick out at 
sea, and the mist was creepin’ over the hills, when 
I heard a man’s footstep on the path, and stood up 
to see who came. 

No need to look twice; ’twas Rory Smith, the 
keeper, trampling quick and heavy, and with a 
heavy cudgel in his clenched hands — a murderous 
look in his eyes. 

He turned upon me, clutching his stick. 

“Whaur are ye goin’?” he said, “and who’s 
that for?” pointin’ to the necklace that hung on 
my fingers. 

“I’m no here to answer questions,” answered I; 
“ but ye can know for a’ that, or ye can turn back, 
and see for yoursel’.” 

“Go, if ye daur!” he shrieked; “for it shall be 
but one o’ us, if ye’ll no turn about the way I’m 
walkin’. It’s through you, is it, that Maggie 
flouts me, an’ throws back my gifts, that are o’ 
mair cost than ye can earn, ye loupin’ beggar?” 

“Haud off!” I shouted; “or I’ll no answer for 
mysel’,” for he was pressin’ on, an’ there was no 
room for a struggle between the rock an’ the 
road’s edge. “Haud off, or not one, but baith, 
may make a turn too many.” 

“ Gie me that trash, ” he said, making a snatch 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


85 


toward the necklace. “ Gie it me, and go no more 
to Maggie’s house — you nor your baby cousin Rab. 
Gie it me, I say!” 

He was upon me before I could answer him, 
mad wi’ passion and wi’ whisky, and dealt me a 
heavy blow upon the head ; but I was quicker and 
stronger than he, and, before he could repeat it, 
had him by wrist and shoulder. As I’ve said, 
’twas no place to wrestle in, and when we both 
came to grips, we had but one scuffle, and then our 
footing was gone, and I lost him and myself, too — 
lost sense, and hearing, and a’ things. 


The sun was high in the sky, when I came to 
myself — shining like a golden shield over the blue 
sea, and the wavin’ grass and heather; and I could 
just see the ripple o’ the waves and the fleece o’ 
white clouds far away, but naething else. 

It was a while before I could do that, for I 
seemed to be covered wi’ dried grass and leaves 
above my chin as I lay there in a deep cleft in the 
cliff side, mid a tangle of stalks an’ roots, and dry 
driftsand, that had got into my claes, and filled my 
ears and eyes. I was like a man paralyzed, too; 
and had to move an inch at a time, till I could rub, 
first my arms, an’ then, when I had got upon one 
elbow, give my legs a turn, and then my back. 
The first thing I did was to feel if the necklace 
was on my wrist still; but it had gone; dropped 
off and lost in the scuffle. Next I crawled to the 
edge of the hole, and peered down the cliff side, 
and all round, as far as I could see, to look for the 
body of Rory Smith ? living or dead, 


86 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


I could not tell how he had fallen; but unless he 
had clutched at the long weed, or reached a cliff 
lower down, he’d hardly be alive after a whole 
night; for, had he fallen on the beach, and been 
disabled, his body was now under the water, 
above which the sea-birds wheeled and piped in the 
bright morning air. 

Perhaps he had cried out, and help had come, 
while I lay senseless. However it was, I must get 
to the village and see what could be done. The 
quickest way was to climb up to the path again, 
and so get toward the long street o’ Slievochan, 
nearer thryi going back to find uncle an’ Rab, 
who’d most likely be at Donald Miller’s to look 
for me. 

It was strange to think that I should have been 
fightin’ for Maggie, an’ all the time was the only 
one that made no claim to be her lover. I began 
to wonder whether, after all, the lassie might 
have understood me different, and had been wait- 
in’ for me to speak out, preferrin’ me to Rab even, 
and wonderin’ why I had his name always fore- 
most. 'The thought was na’ a good one, for I felt 
a kind of sudden fancy to win the girl, even 
though I couldna say I loved her; indeed, I’d 
thought of her only as a winsome child; and, 
lately, had never spoke of her to Rab, except wi’ 
caution, for I could see that the puir laddie was 
sair in airnest. Somehow, the thought o’ my bein’ 
Maggie’s lover, though I put it frae me, caused me 
for a moment to wonder what she’d say to me if 
she saw me all dusty, and with torn clothes and 
grimy face. This made me look at my clothes, 
and, wi’ a sort o’ wonder, I found that my pilot 


SEVEIT FROZEK SAILORS. 


87 


coat had got all brown at the back, where I lay 
upon it, and broke as though it had been scorched. 
My shoes, too, were all dry and stiff ; and as I be- 
gan to climb the cliff, very slowly an 7 painfully, 
my shirt an’ trousers gave way at knees and el- 
bows. I sat down on the bank of the path after 
I’d reached it, a’most dead with faintness an’ 
hunger, so put my hand in my pocket to find my 
pipe. It was there, sure enough, along wi’ my 
steel bacca-box, and there was bacca there too, an’ 
a bit o’ flint to get a light. The bacca was dry as 
powder, but it eased the gnawin’ of my limbs, 
and I tottered on. 

On to the first cottages, leading to the main 
street, where I meant to go first to Mrs. Gilles- 
pie’s, and find some of the fishermen to search the 
cliff for the keeper. As I came nearer to those 
cottages, I could see that something was stirring 
in the village, for women an’ bairns were all out 
in the street, an’ in their best claes ; and across the 
street farther away was a rope bearin’ a great flag 
an’ bunches of heather, an’ the people all about 
Mrs. Gillespie’s door, an’ the by-way leadin’ tow- 
ard Donald Miller’s cottage, and so right up to the 
kirk. I could see a’ this only when I got closer; 
but I could na’ turn up the high street. A kind 
o’ fear an’ wonder kept me back, an’ more than 
once I shut my e’en, and stretchit oot my arms all 
round, to feel whether I was na’ dreamin’ it all in 
the hole of the cliff side, or, maybe, in my bunk 
at hame, or on the deck of the Robert Bruce , wi’ 
Rab at the tiller, an’ uncle smoking forrard. 

I turned up a by-way, and got near to the church 
itsel’, where a man and woman — strangers to me 


88 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


— were leanin’ against the wall, talkin’. 1 
thought I knew everybody in the place; but these 
people had just come out o’ a cottage that belonged 
to auld Nannie Dun, and had turned the key o’ the 
door as though they lived there, at the sicht o’ me 
coming along the path. 

They eyed me over, too, as I came near, and an- 
swered wi’ caution, when I asked what was goin’ 
on the day. 

“Weel, it’s a weddin’ in the kirk,” says the 
wife, “an’ sae lang waited for that it’s little won- 
der a’ the toon is oot to give joy to the bonnie 
bride an’ groom. Ye’re a stranger, and where 
may ye come frae?” 

“Nae, nae,” I said, between a laugh an’ a 
fright. “ Ae body kens me hereabout; but where’s 
auld Nannie, that ye’ve come to see to-day; she’ll 
know me.” 

The couple looked skeerit. “Auld Nannie Dun 
was deed an’ buried six years ago come July,” 
said the woman. “Ye’ve been long away frae 
this toon, I’m thinkin’.” 

“ Frae this village, ” says I. “ Slievochan’ s na’ 
a toon.” 

“’Deed, but it is, though, since the auld laird’s 
death, and the new street was built, two years’ 
ago ; when Donal’ Miller an’ Ivan Dhu bought the 
land that it stands on for a portion for son an’ 
daughter — but there they come.” 

“Just one moment,” I cried, clutching the man 
by the arm. “ Will ye kindly tell me the day an’ 
the year?” 

“What day, mon!” says he, lookin’ at me in 

doubt, 


SEVERN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


89 


“ This present day o’ the month and the year. 
Is it auchteen hunnerd saxteen?” 

“Hoot, mon!” cried the fellow, gettin’ away 
frae me. “Nae; but the third June, auchteen 
hunnerd twenty -sax. Ha’e ye been asleep these 
ten years?” 

I had ! 

It rushed upon me a’ o’ a sudden. My claes 
like tinder; the bed o’ dry leaves; my shrivelled 
boots ; the bacca in powder. There, in that cave 
o’ the cliff I’d slept in a trance, with ne’er a 
dream to know o’, an’ the world had gone round 
while I stoppit still. There was a soun’ o’ talking 
an’ laughin’ at the kirk door, an’ then a shout, as 
a band o’ fishermen came out, all in their best rig; 
an’ then a shoal of pretty lassies, an’ then my un- 
cle Ivan, an’ Mistress Miller — (Old Donald was 
deed, then, I thought) ; and then the bailie an’ my 
Aunt Tibbie; and, after all, feab an’ Maggie — he 
looking a grand, noble man, for he was no longer 
a boy; but wi’ his father’s strength, and Aunt 
Tibbie’s soft, tender smile; an’ she — Maggie, I 
mean — older an’ paler; but wi’ a light in her een, 
an’ a lovin’ look upon her face, that made me for- 
get mysel’ in joy to think how they had come to- 
gether at last, whatever might have happened in 
the ten years. 

But what would happen if I should be seen by 
the bailie, starin’ there at the church porch, in 
my rags and unkempt hair an’ beard — I, that had 
perhaps been sought for, and might be suspectit? 
— Ah! that was dreadfu’ ! — suspectit o’ murder! 
for where was Kory Smith? — and who could tell 
the true tale but me? 


90 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


I might be recognized in a minute ; for how did 
I know whether I was altered? — and I could re- 
member half the men who were there shouting, 
and half the women claverin’ in the kirkyard. I 
crept away. 

The best thing I could do was to make off down 
to the fisher village on the beach ; for everybody 
had come up to the wedding, and I could gain my 
uncle’s house without meeting any one that I knew. 
So crammin’ what was left of my bacca into my 
pipe, I turned down a lane, and could see the man 
and woman that I’d spoken to stopping to look 
after me. 

I was wrong in the thinking that I should reach 
my uncle’s house unknown. At all events, I was 
known after I’d entered the house, though there 
was naebody there. The first thing I did was to 
stir up the embers o’ the fire, for I was chilled, 
though it was a warm summer’s day; then I cut 
a slice from the loaf, and took a mug o’ milk from 
the pan; an’ then went to the ben, to see after 
washing myself, and go on to my ain auld room, 
to look what had come o’ my claes. 

The room was altered, but the chest was there; 
and though my men’s claes had gone, some of my 
boy’s claes were there; an’ even some of them that 
I wore as a child, when Aunt Tibbie made me a 
new suit. I was thocht to be dead, then, but was- 
na’ forgotten. 

If a mon can cry, it does him a world o’ good at 
times — that is, if he doesna’ cry much nor often. 
I cried, and it did me good. Then I went up to 
the little bit o’ broken glass that was nailed to the 
wa’ to speer what like I was. My hair had began 


SEVE# FROZE# SAILORS. 91 

to whiten — bleached, maybe, by the sea air. I 
had a strange, wild look, for hair and beard had 
grown all tangled, and my face was gray instead of 
red-brown, as it once was. Would my uncle know 
me? 

When I went down again to eat some more bread, 
and to look for a little whisky to put wi’ the milk, 
there was a man’s face peerin’ through the win- 
dow ; and before I could stir, the door-latch clicked, 
and in walked my uncle Ivan. I had started to 
my feet, and my uncle strode in, with his hand up- 
lifted, as if to strike me. 

I never stirred, but looked at him full in the 
eyes. 

His hand fell to his side. 

“ What brings ye here frae the dead, or from 
waur than the dead, Sandy Macpherson?” he ex- 
claimed, hoarsely. 

“I’ve no been that far; if they that I’d have 
looked for had looked for me,” I answered. “If 
Rory Smith is alive, he can tell ye about it; or if 
his dead body’s been found, I’ll tell my story over 
that afore all Slievochan.” 

“Then it was you, after all?” said my uncle, 
sinking into a seat, and leaning his head on his 
hands. “An’ I’ve stood up for ye, and swore that 
if there was foul play ’twas he, and not you — or 
maybe Preece, as your aunt thocht at first, because 
he had the necklace. Can ye, an’ will ye, clear up 
this dreadfu’ mystery?” 

“ Uncle Ivan, ” I said, takin’ him by both hands ; 
“ look at my face and hair ; look close at my claes 
and slioon! Come wi’ me, and bring others too, 
to the cliff face below the sitting-stone in the turn 


92 


SEYEK EEOZEN SAIEOES. 


o’ the path — and then it’s just possible, but it’s no 
likely, ye’ll believe what I have to tell. First, 
let me say to ye, I’m innocent o’ any crime. Do 
ye believe that?” 

My uncle lookit at me long and hard, and I 
grippit his hands tight. 

“I do,” he said, at last. 

A weight sprung off my heart. 

“ Uncle, did I ever tell ye a lee?” 

“Never that I ken.” 

“Never — never! I kenned he wud come back!” 
said another voice. 

It was Aunt Tibbie, and she took me in her 
arms. “ I believed ye to be innocent, Sandy ; and 
sae did Eab, and a many more,” she said. “But 
where ha’ ye been?” 

“Ye’ll no believe me, gin’ I tell ye. I don’t 
wonder at that. Ye can’t believe it, mebbe, but 
I’ll tell ye.” 

“ It’ s naething wrong, Sandy ?” said Aunt Tib- 
bie. 

“ Nae, naething but laziness, an’ I couldna help 
that. I’ve been asleep — in a traunce — in a stupor 
— like a toad in a stane, for a’ these years, an’ 
have come to life this verra day!” 

Then I told them all about it; and sic things as 
traunces — though not, maybe, to last sa long as 
mine — had been heard o’ before, and they could 
not but believe it; but they were awa’ again to 
Bab’s wedding, frae which they’d come hame only 
to fetch a silver cup, that was to drink the healths 
o’ the bride and bridegroom. 

“Auntie! where’s my silver mug, that I won at 
the games at the laird’s hair’st?” I asked. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 93 

“ Safe put away wi’ the chaney, lad, an’ noo it’s 
yours again.” 

“Auntie, wad ye tak it as my gift ta Maggie? 
and, uncle, will ye gie my message to Rab, that 
I’ll no’ stay here to bring an ill name or suspicion 
on him or his; but if he’d come an’ gie me his 
hand before I’m awa’? — t’will be little to him, and 
much to me, though I’ve been true to him for a 
whole lifetime — what’s gane of it, at least.” 

So auntie took the silver mug, and they both left 
me ; but not till I had heard how, twa days after 
I had gane, David Preece had been to Donald Mil- 
ler’s cottage an’ offered Maggie a necklace o’ gaudy 
beads, and how Maggie handed them back tae 
him, though he told her he was to leave Slievochan 
next day. Aunt Tibbie heard o’ this; and when 
Maggie told what was' the like o’ the bauble, there 
was a cry for Preece, till it was heard how Rory 
Smith hadna’ been seen for those three days, and 
that I hadna’ been found or heard o’. 

So, ye ken, it was which o’ us should come back 
first wad be ca’d to find the other twa. 

I sat brood — broodin’, waiting for aunt and un- 
cle to return. Eatin’ and drinkin’, and' smokin’ 
(for there was beef an’ whisky, and a cold pie o’ 
auntie’s making) ; but I wadna’ change my claes 
till they should gae wi’ me to the cliff face. 

Before the sun was off the sea, I heard a sound 
of voices outside ; and in a minute I had a hand o’ 
Rab, and a hand o’ Maggie and her mither, an’ 
half-a-dozen o’ our fishers round us who’d known 
me from a laddie; and then uncle said, “Now let 
us away to the cliff path before any o’ the rest 
come back fra the wedding. While they think 


94 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


Rab and Maggie hae gone off o’ the sly, as, indeed, 
they hae, and are ganging ower to the island in the 
new boat to Rab’s cottie.” 

“ ’Twas gran’ o’ ye, Rab, and o’ ye, too, Maggie, 
to come to see me on your weddin’-day,” I said. 
“I’ll no forget it when I’m far awa.” 

“I would ha’ been no gran’ not to ha’ come,” 
said Rab, “to tell our brither that we stan’ against 
a’ that daur accuse him o’ wrang. Why need ye 
gae, Sandy? Stay and tak’ the brunt o’t.” 

“An’ for why, Rab? To bring trouble an’ cold 
looks upo’ them that I’d as sune die as cause grief 
to, an’ that when there’s no need o’ me to work 
here. Nae, nae, I’m awa’ to sea, Rab; an’ when* 
I come hame, only friends need know who ’tis, 
except, indeed, I suld find Rory Smith alive in my 
travels; and, who knows, but I may find puir Da- 
vid Preece, and get my necklace back.” 

“Dinna touch it — dinna touch it!” said Aunt 
Tibbie, shudderin’. 

So we a’ went to the cliff, and there, standin’ by 
the stane, in my withered claes and puckered 
shoon, and wi’ my whitened face an’ a’, I told 
them again; and we men went down to the hole on 
the cliff side, while the women sat on the stane 
above, and we shook hands all round. 

That same evening, two boats shot out o’ our lit- 
tle bay, the first one a new craft, Rab’s ain, wi’ a 
gran’ flag flying, and carrying him an’ his bonnie 
bride hame. Auntie and Mistress Miller were with 
us ; uncle sitting by me while I stood at the tiller, 
and two men forward. Behind it was a row-boat, 
wi’ a piper at the prow, playin’ the bride hame. 
In this boat we a’ went back to Slievoclian, except 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


95 


Rab and Maggie; and once more I slept in my old 
room till mornin’ ; when, wi’ a fit-out o’ claes, and 
some money that I was to repay as soon as I could 
draw my wages, I set out for England. 

It was when the Polar Expedition of 1827 was 
getting ready, and I was one o’ them that joined it, 
though ye may not know my name. 

I’ll no’ describe ony tiling o’ that voyage, sin’ ye 
will ha’ it that I’m repeatin’ frae book; but I’m 
near to the end o’ my yarn now. When we met 
the last o’ the natives near to the Pole, there was 
a party came out to barter with us, and one man 
came forward to speak English, which he did sae 
weel that we lookit hard at him. We had little to 
barter at that time, but presently this fellow pulls 
out something frae his pouch, an’ holds it up by 
the end, and ye’ll no believe it, but there was the 
row o’ beads that had nigh lost me my life, and 
had quite lost me my hame above ten years before ! 
Up to him I strode. “ David Preece,” I shouted in 
his ear, “ye can gae back to Slievochan; for ’twas 
no you that killit Rory Smith, nor that stole my 
present, meant for Maggie Miller.” 

“No,” said Preece, slowly, after looking round 
to see whether any of the Esquimaux noticed him ; 
“and I’ll tell you, for your comfort, that you 
didn’t kill Rory Smith neither; for when I went 
to the great American plains, after leaving Scot- 
land, and finishing a job in Cornwall, I went across 
with a party of trappers and Indians, and there 
was Rory sitting on a mustang, and looking for all 
the world like a Mexikin. I shall come home with 
you now, and bring this necklace with me. The 
people here think it’s a charm.” 


96 ' 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


As Sandy Macpherson ceased, and his eyes came 
back out of space, the men found their tongues. 

“ And did he come back, Sandy ?” 

“ Yes; but not with me.” 

“ And did you go back to what d’ye call it — 
Slievochan?” 

“Of course I did, and left a nest-egg for Bad 
and Maggie’s eldest boy.” 

“ And that was how long ago?” 

“Above thirty years.” 

“And have you been since?” 

“ Of course ; to leave a dowry for his eldest girl. ” 

“And how long’s that ago?” 

“ Say ten years.” 

“Then you haven’t been to sleep since?” 

“ Haven’t I though ! I’ve had thirty years of it, 
in three different times; else how should I be 
eighty year old, and yet out here.” 

“Well, of all the yarns ” began Bostock. 

“Hoot! of a’ the yarns and a’ the yarns! 
What’s wrang wi’ ye? Wad ye hae a Scot’s yarn 
wi’out plenty o’ twist tae’t?” 

“Here, stop!” cried the doctor — “stop, man! 
You haven’t told us how you got frozen in here. 
Don’t say you found the North Pole?” 

“No fear, doctor,” I said, as a cold wind seemed 
to fill the tent, and the place of the Scotch sailor 
was taken up by a thin, blue, filmy mist. 

“ But I wanted ” began the doctor. 

“Don’t; pray don’t try to call him back, uncle,” 
said his nephew. 

“ But he’s told us nothing about his being frozen 
in,” said the doctor. 


SEVEN- FROZEN SAILORS. 


97 


“And won’t now,” growled Binny Scudds. “I 
say, lads, do you know I like this here. We’ll 
have another one out to-morrow.” 

“Let’s go outside and look,” said the doctor. 

We did, and there was the square block of ice 
neatly open, leaving the shape of the Scotch sailor 
perfect, even to the place where his long, thin nose 
had been. 

“Well, turn in, lads,” said the doctor; “we’ll 
hunt out another to-morrow.” 

“ So we will,” said the lads. “ Who’s afeard?” 

“Nobody!” growled Bostock. “I say, doctor, 
what’s the difference between these and ghosts?” 

“ These, my men, ” began the doctor, “ are scien- 
tific specimens, while your ghost is but a foolish 

hallucination of the Bless me, how rude! — the 

fellow’s asleep.” 

And the rest were soon in the same condition. 
Early the next morning, though, the doctor gave 
the order, “Strike tents!” and we journeyed on a 
couple of miles along the edge of the great crater, 
looking curiously down the mysterious slope, at the 
pale, thin mist far below. 

“I should like to go down,” said the doctor, 
looking longingly at the great hollow; “but it 
won’t do; there’s the getting back, and I should 
be such a loss to the scientific world. Hallo! 
here’s another.” 

He pointed to the clearly-seen figure of a man 
underneath the ice, and the men, having now be- 
come familiar to such sights, set to laughingly, and 
were saved much trouble, for the ice cracked away 
from the figure, and after a few strokes they were 
able to lift the body out, and lay it in the sun, 
7 


98 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


where, before many minutes had passed, it made 
the motion of taking snuff, and then ejaculated — 

“Declare to goodness!” 

“Take a nip, mate,” said Abram Bostock, hand- 
ing a tot of rum ; but the figure waved it away. 

“Who are you?” said the doctor. “How did 
you get here? Don’t say you’ve already discovered 
the North Pole.” 

“Pole? North Pole?” said the figure, sleepily. 
“ I know nothing about the North Pole. No, in- 
deed!” 

“ Well, who are you?” said the doctor. “ Come, 
give us a scientific account;” and the stranger be- 
gan 


CHAPTER V. 


THE WELSH SAILOR’S YARN. 

My name aboard ship is registered John Jones. 
Yes, indeed. Though, to confess exactly, I was 
born the son of Hugh Anwyl, miner, of the parish 
cf Glanwern, in the county of Merioneth, and my 
father baptized me by his own name ; so that John 
is Hugh, and Jones is Anwyl, indeed. I mention 
this at starting, to prevent my yarn being water- 
logged before it reaches mid-ocean. 

Well, mates, a beautiful spot is the village of 
Glanwern. The broad river Mawdach, which runs 
between the clefts of the mountains, d’ye see, and is 
overhung with silver birch on either side, separates 
us — that is, the Glanwernians, indeed — from the 
town of Barmouth. 

It’s a many year since these eyes beheld that fa- 
miliar spot; yet, my lads, I never got becalmed, or 
down with a fever, or otherwise on my beam-ends, 
but what my thoughts turned to old Glanwern — for 
it’s the brightest place, with the darkest memories, 
I ever knew. 

Yes, indeed, I think I see it now. And you 
won’t go for to suppose, because my eyes are all 
a-leak, like a brace of scuppers, that I’ve therefore 
lost my trim. After all, ’tain’t Glanwern. *It’s 
what happened to me there, when I was a youth as 
99 


100 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


gay as a poppy, with the hand of a man and the 
face of a girl. 

That’s the mischief, messmates. 

’T would have been happier for Hugh Anw-yl if 
he’d been as ugly in those days as John Jones is 
at this moment ; for, you see, my lads, when I was 
quite young, I got rather to like a girl called Gwen 
— Gwendoline that is; we, indeed, called her Gwen 
— Thomas. She was next-door neighbor to my 
old dad’s cottage, and she’d a deuce of a knack of 
fondling on you without so much as touching a 
button of your coat. 

Yes, Gwen was one of the sort that act like 
magnets to a seaman’s lips. I never loved her, 
d’ye see ; but I was flattered by such a smart craft 
coming alongside, and — well, indeed, — I played 
the fool. I kissed her, because it seemed to do 
her good. And she — darn her cunning head! — she 
meant it all! I know that she’d have done any- 
thing, indeed, if I’d but have passed the word. 
But I didn’t. I never so much as talked about the 
parson. 

It was about a year after this, that Bhoda How- 
ell, the miller’s daughter, came home from the 
boarding-school at Dolgelly, full of music, and 
English, and French, and all them things. 

My stars! she was a picture, she was! I — that’s 
to say, Hugh Anwyl, you know — was taken all 
aback, and felt something or other dance the dou- 
ble-shuffle under my waistcoat pocket. 

Well, mates, we fell to what you may call flirt- 
ing. I asked her to go for a walk, and she, in- 
deed, consented ; and so it went on, as you might 
say, from better to best. 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


101 


Yes, indeed, I could not give those days a truer 
name than best; for I am sure that they were the 
only real sunshine either of us ever felt in our life- 
times. . 

Ye see, Rhoda loved me. Why, heaven only 
knows. And I — I could have died for her. 

There wasn’t a bright lad in Glanwern that 
didn’t envy the luck of Hugh Anwyl; and, rightly 
enough, too; for I swear, though I’ve travelled 
north, south, east, and west, and have met with 
women of all nations, not once have I ever found 
the equal of Rhoda Howell. I almost shrink from 
speaking her name. It seems — well, sacred! 
Poor Rhoda! like a flower of spring, you died 
early! Yes, indeed, ours ain’t one of them love 
tales which comes all right at t’other end of the 
book. She’s in heaven; and Hugh Anwyl — he 
ain’t just exactly in the other place; but he’s not 
so very far off neither, being afloat, and registered 
John Jones, A.B. 

To come back to my yarn, indeed. 

One clear autumn evening, when the sun was 
lighting up the heather on the sides of Cader Idris, 
you might, if you’d a-happened to be there, have 
beheld a scene which the whole world don’t show 
out of North Wales, me and my girl, Rhoda, was 
walking, cosy-like, through a quiet bit of wood, 
where none could hear, and I don’t think I ever 
felt my heart so swell with joy as I did that mo- 
ment, when she says, says she, beating her foot 
on the grass, “ Shall I tell you a secret?” 

“ Yes,” I answers, just glancing at her, and see- 
ing her lips come over pale. 

“ Will you promise me,” she asks, “to keep it?” 


102 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“ Promise !” I cries out; “ I’ll sivear /” You see, 
I was getting curious. 

She looks at me serious — yes, indeed, very se- 
rious. Then she whispers, quite confidential-like, 
“ I’ve got a lover!” 

“What!” I bellows, quite savage. It didn’t 
take much to make me jealous; and I felt as if I 
would have killed a rival ker-slap. 

She smiles, in a faint sort of a fashion. Then 
she mutters, just as if the trees were all a-listening 
to us with ears instead of leaves, “ I shan’t say, 
unless you’ll agree to be sensible.” 

A kind of a sulky feeling come over me, my 
boys, at her teazing words; but I told her I’d al- 
ways do exactly, indeed, as she wished. 

“Then,” says she, with a wry face, “it’s David 
Thomas. He’ve been to father this morning, and 
asked for me. Yes, indeed!” 

“I — I’ll fight the lubber!” I sings out, forgetful 
of my promise. 

“Hush!” she whispers, as soft as a wind which 
don’t so much as shake the canvas ; “ I don’t think 
I’m going to marry any one; but I’m certain sure 
I won’t have David Thomas!” 

Whereat she fell a-beating her little foot again 
upon the dead leaves. 

Well, mates, I didn’t quite like that prophecy 
of hers ; but ’twas better than to hear her say she’d 
allow herself to be driven into wedlock with such 
a one as David. So I held my peace. Yes, in- 
deed. Yet I felt as if a thunderbolt were placed 
aloft, right over my head, or as if a volcano were 
a-going to spring up under my feet. My brain be- 
gan to wobble like bilge-water in a ship’s hold. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


103 


when all of a sudden an idea struck me. Yes, 
indeed! What’s more, my bearings was right for 
once. 

“It’s that girl, Gwen,” I says, “as is at the bot- 
tom of this rig. David Thomas is a sawny land- 
lubber. He’d never have the courage to speak 
of his own accord. Particular when he’s received 
no encouragement from you.” 

But Bhoda didn’t exactly see through Hugh 
Anwyl’s glasses. She wasn’t a sort of girl to 
think Gwen a snake, being herself as innocent of 
wrong as the snow which falls straight from Para- 
dise. 

Says she, quite solemn, “You must not go to 
charge Gwen Thomas with them things. Gwen’s 
my dear friend, indeed.” 

Well, my lads, if I hadn’t got narvous, I’d have 
told her that me and Gwen had been just a trifle 
free with each other’s lips. But, I tell ye, I feared 
to say the words. She was chuck full of a sort of 
what you may call a romance. Often and often 
she’ve said, that she felt so happy in having picked 
the first flower of my heart — whereby she meant 
that she’d got the whole of my love. And so she 
had. Yes, indeed. May I be shrivelled to a 
mummy if she hadn’t. Only, ye see, if I’d gone 
to tell her that Gwen and I had been playing the 
fool, she’d mayhap have thought different. So I 
kept my own counsel. 

“ Now, ” says she, in a wheedling, coaxing way 
no lubber ever could resist, “ it will all come right 
in the end, if you won’t go to act foolish. Yes, 
indeed. Pather likes David, but father loves 
Bhoda. And when David asks me, and I says, 


104 


SEVEN" FROZEN" SAILORS. 


‘No/ father ain’t the kind of man to say, ‘You 
must. ’ ” 

“Ay, ay!” I answered her; “but ain’t he the 
boy to say ‘You mustn’t,’ in case a lubber of the 
name of Anwyl should put that there same curious 
question?” 

Well, my lads, Rhoda, at this, went off on the 
starboard tack, for fear I should make out the cut 
of her jib. She daren’t face me; for she couldn’t 
deny that Miller Howell was a cranky lot, indeed. 
So she took to picking blackberries, as if they was 
so many liot-house grapes, instead of being as red 
as currants, and as sour as verjuice. 

“ You can’t deny it, Rhoda!” I sings out, feeling 
vexed indeed. 

Then she turns round from her blackberry ing, 
and I spied a tear in the corner of her eye. So I 
knew what I said was the cause of her hiding her 
head, and I held my tongue, being ashamed. 

As we was walking homeward, later on, the 
brace of us tongue-tied and melancholy as an alba- 
tross before a cyclone comes on, Rhoda whispers in 
my ear, “Can’t you trust a girl’s wit? I’m a 
match for any two of ’em!” 

“Right, sweetheart!” says I, gripping her hand. 
For all that, a notion, indeed, crossed my brain, 
“ that she who is better than two mayn’t be good 
enough to tackle three.” And so it proved. 

Well, mates, it might have been two or three 
days later on that I chanced to be in Barmouth, 
and there, in the porch of “The Wynn Arms,” I 
came into collision, as you might say, with one 
Evan Evans, an old shipmate of mine, who worked 
on the Anna Maria Sett alongside of me, and could 


SEYEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


105 


handle a pick as cleverly as our boatswain the 
rope’s end. Evan, indeed, when he claps eyes on 
me, sings out, right cheerily, “ A drain of grog, my 
boy!” 

“With you,” I answers, “Evan, yes, indeed!” 

So we turns into the bar-parlor of “ The Wynn 
Arms, ” and he orders two goes of rum punch, hot. 

When we was sat down comfortable, I began to 
twig, d’ye see, that his rig was that of a seafaring 
man. His arms was tattooed, and his kit looked 
smart. 

“Avast!” I sings out, — “avast, Evan Evans! 
Surely, you’ve never joined the horse-marines?” 

“Mate,” he replies, giving me a slap on the 
shoulder, like a true seaman, “there’s a better 
mine, containing richer mineral than the old Anna 
Maria, and that’s the open sea!” 

Faith, mates, when he spake them words, I mis- 
took him for one of them land-lubbers who dresses 
up in seaman’s rig, and takes nurses and babbies 
out for a run in a pleasure-boat. 

Yes, indeed. But Evan soon put matters 
straight. 

“Hugh Anwyl,” he says, pulling out a leather 
case, “ this ere holds a hundred and fifty pounds, 
beside gold and silver.” 

“ Take care of it, Evan, then, ” says I — for I 
knew he was a light-headed sort of craft; “or,” 
says I, “ your master will be pulling of you up on 
account of losing his moneys, indeed.” 

“Master!” he sings out, with a roar of laughter 
like a fusillade — “master! I ain’t got no master! 
Them’s the property of Evan Evans.” 

“ My lad, ” I cried, in a sort of a serious voice, 


106 


SEVEH FROZEH SAILORS. 


“I’m sorry to hear it. I always took ye for a 
honest lubber.” 

Whereat, for a second, he looked mighty wrath- 
ful. Yes, indeed. Then, as he perceived that I 
was what ye may call all abroad, he burst out 
laughing again as if his sides w T ould burst. 

“Evan,” says I, “I’ve lost my bearings.” 

“So you have,” he answers; “for the fact of 
the matter is, you don't understand what you’re 
a-talking about.” 

Well, my lads, with that he cooled down a bit, 
and forthwith commenced to relate how he’d been 
on a whaling expedition to Greenland, and had met 
with luck. The conditions was that all was to 
share and share alike — skipper, crew, and all. 
They had a hard time of it. One of ’em lost a 
nose, another a finger or two, and some of ’em 
their toes. Yes, indeed; the cold in them lati- 
tudes is mighty thieving of prominent parts of the 
human frame. 

But then, if the risk’s considerable, the gain’s 
even more so. Now, my lads, this shipmate’s good 
fortune set me a-thinking — as, indeed, was but 
nat’ral. David Thomas didn’t own so much as 
one hundred and fifty pounds — not he. His old 
father might be worth that sum, if his possessions 
was all sold. But in the principality, where 
money’s scarce, a little goes a long way; and I cal- 
culated, on that account, if I could draw anything 
approaching so heavy an amount of pay on a single 
venture, Miller Howell would not stand in the way 
of my wedding his daughter Rhoda. 

“So,” says I, “Evan, my old shipmate, you and 
I have always been the best of comrades. I’d like 


SEYE# FROZE# SAILORS. 


107 


to enjoy a similar slice of good fortune. Not as 
though I’d be greedy, Evan. Give me my ship’s 
biscuit and my share of grog, and I’m content. 
But, Evan, there’s a pretty craft that wants to 
moor alongside of me, and her skipper won’t agree, 
because I haven’t got a shot in my locker. That’s 
it, indeed!” 

Evan, he looks at me steady ; then he holds out 
his fist with all the grace of a port-admiral, just as 
if he meant to serve double grog or give leave to go 
ashore. 

“Hugh,” says he, “the day after to-morrow I 
sail again for the North Seas. For my mother, 
Hugh, she’s old and she’s sick, and this ’ere 
pocket-book, with its contents, is for her. Join 
our crew, my hearty, and I’ll promise ye fair play 
and a sailor’s greeting. You’ll bring back with ye 
enough to satisfy your lass’s skipper, and I’ll 
dance at your wedding.” 

Up I springs to my feet, and, though I was short 
of money, I orders another grog. And then Evan 
and I struck our bargain; and, I tell ye, I felt an- 
other and a stronger man. 

“Now, Evan,” I sings out, “I’ll be off home to 
tell my lass.” 

“Avast,” says my shipmate, “you’ll need to see 
about your kit. It’s darned cool up in them lati- 
tudes!” 

“Ay, ay,” I replied — “to-morrow will do for 
that. ” 

“Eight,” he answers; “we’ll meet^ at this very 
spot to-morrow, by your leave.” 

Well, mates, with a swelling heart, I crossed 
the Mawdach Eiver, and began to trudge back to 


108 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


Glanwern. About a mile or so to the north of the 
village, I ran athwart Gwen Thomas, with a roll 
of music under her arm, and a broad grin on her 
deceitful face. 

“ You’re quite a stranger, Hugh,” she says, 
dropping a curtsey, as if I were the parson, or Sir 
Watkin himself. “Yes, indeed; now Rhoda 
Howell's come back to Glanwern, you’ve lost your 
eyes for every one else. If I wasn’t good-tem- 
pered, I’d take offence.” 

Now, my lads, I was a bit in the wrong about 
this girl Gwen. I don’t say that she wasn’t most 
to blame of the two, yet conscience made me feel 
uncomfortable as regards the part I had played 
toward her. So I couldn’t be otherwise than civil, 
when she met me so pleasant like, instead of being 
out of temper, as I expected. 

Says I, “ Gwen, lass, mayhap I do care more for 
Rhoda than for most others ; I’m not ashamed to 
own it. Anyhow, for her sake, I’m going on a 
long voyage.” 

“What?” she cries, anxiously, her lips turning 
pale indeed. 

So, when the girl passed the question to me, I up 
and told her the whole tale, and how that, in forty- 
eight hours, I should be afloat on the briny ocean, 
with the ship’s bows standing for the North Sea. 

She heard me out, quite dazed like. Then she 
says, says she, in a very quiet, demure fashion, 
“ You’ll come to the singing-class to : night, if it’s 
only to wish us all a farewell? Rhoda will be 
there, but she will walk with the miller; so, if you 
like to keep me company for the last time, you may.” 

In those old days, Hugh Anwyl boasted a tenor 


SEVEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


109 


voice. Yes, indeed. And this girl Gwen got the 
reputation of being a prime musician, and used to 
train our class. They had her all the way off to 
Llangollen, to perform at an Eistedfodd, as they 
call it in the principality, for she sang like a night- 
ingale. Well, when she asked me to walk with 
her, I thought it churlish to refuse. So, like a 
simpleton, I said, “ Yes ;” and away she tripped, 
with an odd laugh, as if she was mighty pleased. 

I did not know it at the time, nor did I hear it 
until long after, but Gwen’s brother David, that 
same afternoon, had been to see my Rhoda. 

He told her that Miller Howell expected that 
she would have him for a husband, and had given 
him permission to ask her, and that Hugh Anwyl 
cared for too many girls to love her. 

However, in the evening I called for Gwen, and 
we two walked together to the waterfall. 

Nobody had arrived before us; so we sat down 
on the cromlech, and began to sing what you may 
call a duet — that is, a stave for two voices. 

But my heart was all with Rhoda Howell; and, 
as I sat singing alongside of that artful craft, 
Gwen Thomas, I thought of nothing but the good 
news I had to tell, and how it would joy the girl 
I loved so dearly. 

It might have been ten minutes or more — at last, 
however, I spied the old miller, and behind him 
his pretty daughter, arm-in-arm with David 
Thomas. 

Rhoda’s face was unusual white, and her eyes 
didn’t quite look straight ahead, but seemed to 
tack about, as if the wind had shifted to a stormy 
quarter. 


110 SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 

Not much was said by any one, and that little 
not worth remembering. After a bit, Gwen pulls 
out her pitch-pipe, and starts off with “ Hail, 
smiling morn!” — a very proper ditty; then “Hop- 
a-derry-dando,” “The Men of Harlech,” and a lot 
more — we men singing tenor and bass to the girls’ 
treble voices. 

Ah, lads! I think I hear that harmony roll away 
with the waterfall. I’ve never forgotten it. The 
first storm in mid-ocean and the last song your 
love sings — these, my boys, are sounds which stick 
to your ears like barnacles to the bottom of a hulk, 
or limpets to the rocks on the shore. 

In the middle of this sing-song, as you may call 
it, I spied Rhoda — who wouldn’t so much as look 
or smile at me — whisper to her father, the old mil- 
ler; and presently they both left. I wish now 
that I’d given them a stern chase, and bohrded, 
like a bold buccaneer. But, you see, I couldn’t 
rightly make out Rhoda’s looks. Something was 
amiss. That I guessed. And I thought that the 
sky being so ugly and overcast, I’d better wait for 
the chance of clear weather on the mortow. 

As soon as the singing was over, I saw that lub- 
ber David — who I could have kicked all the way 
to Dolgelly with pleasure, indeed — I saw him catch 
Gwen by the buttonhole, and give her some sort 
of a tip. She looked earnestly at him, and smiled. 
Then she turned away, quite composed, indeed. 

My lads, I can guess what it was that deceitful 
varmint said to his minx of a sister. They was 
laying a trap for me, the two of them. Ay! Yes, 
indeed! And they caught me, as clean as a shark 
a sailor’s leg! 


SEVEN - FROZEN" SAILORS. 


Ill 


“ Rhoda’ s got a bad headache, ” says Gwen, sid- 
ling up to me. 

“How do you know?” asks I, none too civil, for 
I was downright savage with myself and every one 
else all round. 

“ She told me so, ” answered Gwen, as glib as an 
eel. 

“ I didn’t see her speak to you,” says I ; nor did 
I, indeed. 

“ She complained of it this afternoon,” remarked 
Gwen. 

I didn’t say no more. I was out of temper and 
out of sorts. 

“Don’t be angry with Rhoda!” whispers Gwen, 
quite kindly like. “ She’s as true as steel!” 

My lads, them words were designed to play me 
like a fish with a bait; but they sounded so soft 
and consoling as to make me feel ashamed for my 
rudeness to this girl. 

“Thank’ee, Gwen!” says I. “You’re a good 
sort! I did hope to have told Rhoda of my luck 
to-night. But ’tain’t to be, and I must just wait 
till to-morrow!” 

“ The news will do her a power of good,” whis- 
pers Gwen, quite confidential. “ Yes, indeed. 
David wanted to have her, but she won’t wed 
aught but Hugh Anwyl ; and when you’ve got your 
money, you know, her father will give his consent.” 

Now, you’d say, any man Jack of you, that 
these were fair and, to use a figure of speech, sis- 
terly words. By George, lads! when I heard 
them, I caught hold of her hand and shook it 
hearty. It seemed to me that she was handling 
me better than I handled her. 


V 


112 SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 

“Gwen,” says I, “I’ve plighted my troth to 
Bhoda Howell, so I won’t offer to kiss you; but I 
do thank you, as a true friend to us both.” 

Bless you, you should have heard her laugh. It 
wasn’t a clear, merry, innocent sort of laugh, like 
my poor Rhoda’s, but a kind of a nasty sneer. It 
made me thrill again. 

“I don’t bear malice, Hugh Anwyl,” she cries. 
“Not I! You and I were better friends before 
Rhoda came — that’s all!” 

I was just a little puzzled by her words. By 
now, however, she had gathered up her music, and 
began to walk away. 

“ Dear, dear!” she cried, as we got into the road 
which leads from Glanwern to Dolgelly ; “ why, I 
declare, it’s quite dark indeed, and I’ve got to go 
to Llanbrecht to fetch some butter from Farmer 
Jenkins, and I’m deadly afeard to pass the Clwm 
Rock, because of Evan Dhu!” 

You see, that we’d got a Davy Jones in them 
parts, a sort of a ghost. The folks called it “ Evan 
Dhu,” or “Evan the Black.” 

Says I, quite quietly, “ If you’re afeard of Evan 
Dhu, why don’t you ask David to go along with 
you?” 

“He’s out in the fields by now,” she answers, 
“taking care of the calves.” 

“Wait till he’s done with the calves, then,” I 
observes, a-yawning. 

Whereupon, dang me! if the girl didn’t com- 
mence to whimper. 

“Shiver my timbers, lass!” cries I, “if you’re 
that frightened of the ghost, dash me if I don’t go 
with ye!” 


SEVEN- FROZEN" SAILORS. 


113 


This was just what this Jezebel wanted. 

We walked together through the village of Glan- 
wern, and I looked up anxiously at the windows of 
Miller Howell’s house, if perchance, indeed, I 
might catch a glimpse of Rhoda. As we ap- 
proached, I fancied I saw her face in the top gar- 
ret window. Perhaps I didn’t. Anyhow, it 
wasn’t visible when we passed. 

We trudged on slowly through the silence of 
that mountainous district, our path lying through 
clefts and brushwood, till at length the black 
Clwm Rock towered in front of us, like a hideous 
monster, in the moonlight. 

Suddenly I felt my arm gripped. The feeling, 
my lads — I give you the word of honor of an old 
sailor, — -was so strange, that I imagined Evan Dhu 
had arrested me. Yes, indeed! It startled me. 
But I was in error. It was not Evan Dhu. It 
was the false girl, Gwendoline Thomas. 

“Ugh!” gasped she, as if she were terrified to 
hear the sound of her own voice, — “ugh! I saw 
him, dear Hugh! Yes, indeed.” 

“ What? — who?” I asked. 

“Hush — hush!” she whispered. “Speak not 
another word! We are in peril! He will kill 
us!” 

“Don’t be a fool, Gwen!” says I, unceremo- 
nious-like, for she was clinging to me quite des- 
perate. 

“Silence,” she whispers, “or you’ll provoke 
him! I tell you he is watching me! There — 
there!” — a-pointing with her hand at the rock. 

I’ll own that at that particular moment I felt 
rum indeed — especially when Gwen began to 

a ^ 


114 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


shake like an aspen, and seemed as if she’d fall 
down. To save her, I clasped her resolutely 
round the waist; and thus, with her head leaning 
on my shoulder, we passed the dreaded Clwm 
' Eock , the moon all the while shining full on us. 

We had but just turned the corner toward Llan- 
brecht, when, I take my solemn oath, I heard a 
deep-drawn sigh! 

“ Kun!” whispered Gwen. “ That’s him!” 

My lads, we did run every step of the way to 
Llanbrecht: and when Farmer Jenkins heard our 
story, he had out his trap indeed, and drove us 
home, four miles round by the road, so that Gwen 
should not be frightened a second time. 

“Don’t talk about it,” said Gwen; “folks will 
laugh.” 

“ I’ll tell Ehoda, and no one else,” was my plain 
answer. 

On the morrow I rose with the dawn, and ran 
round to the miller’s door. Every other day, for 
the past six months, Ehoda was out and about at 
that hour, scrubbing the steps or feeding the chick- 
ens. There was no Ehoda then ; so I wended my 
way to “The Wynn Arms,” Barmouth, where I 
waited for upward of four long hours. Then at 
last Evan Evans lurches up, a full three sheets in 
the wind, and as thick-headed as the thickest lands- 
man. 

Well, messmates, it took me a sight of time to 
see about that there kit. Ye see, I hadn’t too 
many shots in the locker, and wanted to do the 
thing cheap. But this lubber, Evan Evans, was 
more harm than good, having lost every atom of 
his tongue except the part that’s constructed to do 


SEYEK FROZEH SAILORS. 


115 


the swearing. That was lively enough, and woke 
up the storekeepers. 

It was quite dusk before I returned to Glanwern, 
and I had, as you remember, to leave by daylight 
on the morrow. Now, indeed, thought I, the time 
has come when I must speak to Rhoda; so I 
marches for the third time boldly up to Miller 
Howell’s door, and spies about for my poor dove, 
who I loved more than life. 

The door, my boys, was shut, and locked, too; 
which, by the bye, ain’t much of a custom in that 
part of North Wales, where “Taffy ain’t a thief,” 
and we can trust our neighbors as ourselves. 

“Rhoda!” I calls out, quite gently, yet so as she 
must hear, unless she’s out of the house, or gone 
deaf, indeed. 

None answered. No, indeed, none. My dear 
boys, I felt desperate; so, with a firm hand, I 
knocked at the door-handle. 

In a jiffy, out comes Miller Howell, with a face 
like the mast of a rakish yacht, long, and thin, and 
yallow. 

“ What d’ye want, Hugh Anwyl?” 

The words was spoken harsh indeed, and angry. 
I started as if he had struck me across the face, or 
ordered me into irons. 

“Master,” says I, “I’m going away for a long 
journey, perhaps never to come back again; and I 
wish to say good-by to your daughter Rhoda.” 

He looks at me from top to toe, and up again 
frpm toe to top. The man’s features were as hard 
and pitiless as if they had been cut out of a block 
of Welsh granite. Then, without a word, he 
slams the door in my face. 


116 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


Friends and messmates, I’m a Welshman, with 
the hot blood of Caedmon in my veins. I couldn’t 
bear this, indeed; so I stood outside and cried, at 
the top of my voice, “Bhoda — Bhoda Howell, I, 
Hugh Anwyl, beg and pray you to come and wish 
me a farewell ! Bhoda, answer me, for I am go- 
ing away!” 

Silence! She would have come out, indeed, but 
was prevented. That I heard afterward. So I 
left — I’m not ashamed to own the truth — with the 
tears a-streaming down my cheeks and my heart 
breaking. I could have gone straight and drownd- 
ed myself, I was so distraught. Presently I felt 
a finger on my sleeve. 

“Hugh!” whispers a soft voice, “I’m downright 
grieved for you.” 

It was Gwen Thomas. 

I didn’t answer, mates’ — for why? Because 
I couldn’t; my eyes was leaking, and my timbers 
all of a shiver, and I seemed without so much as a 
helm. But I suffered her to lead me into the back 
room of old Thomas’s cottage, not knowing for 
what port I was being steered. Then I sat down, 
and she clasped my hand quite tender. 

“ Hugh Anwyl,” she says, “whatever I am — and 
I know I’m not as good-looking as others — I’m a 
true, sincere friend. Being so, I tell ye, I am 
grieved to see ye thus wrecked within sight of 
land.” 

I couldn’t talk to her; but, after a bit, she got 
me calmed down, and I quite felt as if I must try 
to please her — in a sort of a tame-cat fashion. 

At last, she says, quite as if the thought had 
come into her false head accidental indeed, “ Write 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


117 


Rhoda a letter, and I’ll promise you she shall have 
it safe. I’ll give it her myself.” 

I was that excited, I took the girl in my arms 
and embraced her. Then I sat down and I wrote 
to Rhoda, telling her the whole tale, and how, 
for her sake, I was going to risk my life on a whal- 
ing expedition ; and praying her to keep single for 
me till I came back again with money in my hand 
so as to buy the consent of her father. 

When I done that, my lads, I gave it, sealed 
careful, to Gwen Thomas; and, kissing the girl, 
who cried, as I thought, uncommon unaccountably, 
I lurched forth, and turned my back upon Glan- 
wern. 

Here I ought to pull up and rest a bit, for 
there’s what you may call a break in my yarn. I 
was far away from the girl I loved, toiling, as we 
mariners only toil, for the cursed gold which 
should make two miserable souls happy. 

To cut my story short, however, I was gone, as 
near as may be, twelve months. Our first venture 
failed. We met with nothing but bad luck, and 
ran into Aberdeen harbor as empty-handed as we 
went. So, as I wouldn’t come home without the 
necessary money, I just slips a short line into the 
post to let Rhoda know that Hugh Anwyl was 
alive, and to beg her to be patient. Then, indeed, 
1 joined a second expedition, which was fortunate. 
We brought back with us a fine cargo of sealskins, 
besides whalebone; and when I drew my share, it 
amounted, all told, to nigh upon two hundred 
pounds, together with some furs, and a few curios- 
ities. 

I ran down straight from Aberdeen, travelling 


118 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


night and day by the railway, just such another 
autumn night as the one when I started. I rolled, 
unsteady like, into Glanwern village, and the first 
soul I meets was Gwen Thomas. My stars! you 
should have heard her give tongue. If I’d been 
Evan Dhu himself in the guise of a seafaring man, 
she couldn’t have looked more terrified. 

“Why, Gwen, lass!” cried I, “you ain’t never 
afeard of Hugh Anwyl?” 

She was afeard, though} and she’d good cause, 
too. 

“How’s Rhoda?” asks I. I ought to hae men- 
tioned my father, but my mind ran, like a ship in 
a whirlpool, to one centre. 

“Oh,” says Gwen, turning away her head, 
“she’s still ill!” 

“What d’ye mean?” I sings out, clutching her 
arm tight. 

“Don’t!” says she. “ You sailors are so rough, 
indeed.” 

“You speak the truth, then!” cries I; for I 
guessed from her look and the queer color in her 
darned figurehead, that something was tarnation 
wrong with my Rhoda. 

She looks at me as steady as a gunner taking 
aim. 

“Hugh,” she says, “you’ll have to hear what 
will hurt you sooner or later. Rhoda is married to 
David!” 

I didn’t speak. Neither did a tear escape my 
eye. But I sat down on a stone .by the roadside, 
and I felt as if I’d been struck by a flash of light- 
ning. 

Gwen went on talking; and at last, when she 


SEYEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


119 


saw what was up, she ran and fetched my father, 
and the old lubber hoisted me somehow indoors, 
and shoved me into a hammock. I rather think I 
was what ye may call mad. 

How long my mind remained so affected I can’t 
rightly judge. My first recollection is of seeing a 
pale face sitting by my side, and I heard a sound 
which brought me to. 

It was Rhoda. Although she’d been forced into 
a marriage with that lubber David, she’d not for- 
gotten me; and she’d come to tell me all. Yes, 
indeed. And what’s more, she’d come none to 
soon; for if Hugh Anwyl was somewhere in the 
latitude of lunacy, Rhoda was in the longitude of 
decline. She was dying! Yes, indeed! 

She told me how they had hatched up a lie about 
my having made love to Gwen. To prove this, 
David had plotted to make me walk that evil night 
with his false sister to the Clwm Rock. Rhoda 
had at first refused to believe their story. But 
when she saw us — for she lay concealed behind the 
rock — pass by as if we were lovers, with Gwen’s 
darned face resting on my bosom, she was cheated 
into thinking me false. Still she would have 
heard me, and learned the truth before I left 
Glanwern, but her old father interfered; and 
when I was gone, and Gwen had never delivered 
my letter, she consented to wed David — just, as 
you may say, for the sake of peace — believing the 
yarn they invented, that I had run away to sea 
and would never come back. It was not, indeed, 
until she received my letter from Aberdeen that 
she learned how wickedly she had been deceived. 
From that moment she fell ill, and nothing would 


120 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


please her but to return to Miller Howell’s house. 
As for David, indeed, she would not look at him, 
or speak to him ; and she did but sit still and wait 
for death, hoping, as she told me, that Hugh Anwyl 
might return before the end came. 

My lads, her sweet voice somehow steadied my 
brain. I saw the whole spider’s web unfolded. 
Gwen and David had plotted to sink our craft, and 
there we lay waterlogged. 

“ Shall I smash the pair of them?” I said. 

“For my sake, no, indeed,” she answered. 
“Let us forget them. It is too late, Hugh An- 
wyl.” 

Mates, I rose from that hammock that very in- 
stant, a strong, hale seaman once more. My life 
was wrecked, in so far as happiness goes. But 
the strength remained to me. Not so, poor little 
Rhoda. Her cheek was hollow, and the bright 
eyes shone like the evening stars in the southern 
seas. So weak was she, that I had to support her 
back to Miller Howell’s house. 

“ Come in, Hugh Anwyl, ” says the old, greedy 
father, looking as if he could drop down dead from 
shame and sorrow on the doorstep. “Come in. 
This is stormy weather.” 

I couldn’t speak to the man. I would not re- 
proach him with having been the cause of this 
wreck — for his features, indeed, displayed the 
punishment he had received. But I came in, and 
I sat down by Rhoda’ s side on the sofa. 

In a minute or two, the door opens, and a figure 
intrudes itself. 

Rhoda put her hands in front of her face, as if 
she was shamed beyond all bearing, indeed, I 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


121 


started to my legs, for I could have killed the 
man. 

It was David Thomas ! 

Yes, mates, David Thomas, come to see his law- 
ful wife, Rhoda Thomas, who was married to him 
six months ago. 

Rhoda put her finger on my arm, and I sat down 
like a lamb. It was impossible to avenge her 
wrong. 

“ Be off out of this house, which you have 
brought ruin into!” says Miller Howell, speaking 
to his son-in-law. 

The lubber sheered off. 

My mates, I can tell no more. We sat as we 
was, on that there sofa, till sunset; and then — and 
then, poor Rhoda died in my arms! 

Yes, mates, she dropped off to sleep; and, for all 
her miserable end, she died happy indeed ! 

As for Hugh Anwyl, he went back to sea. But 
after every voyage he returns to Glanwern church- 
yard, and he puts a bunch of flowers on a grassy 
mound — for that is his only home. 

“Yes, that’s all very pretty,” cried the doctor, 
who had listened attentively ; “ but in the name of 
Owen, Darwin, and Huxley; Hudson, Franklin, 

Bellot, and Scoresby, how did you Confound 

it! was ever anything so provoking?” 

“He ain’t left so much as a tooth behind,” said 
Binny Scudds, looking down at the ice. 

“ But he had not discovered the Pole, my man. 
Here, search round ; we may find one who has been 
there; but I hope not. I believe, my lads, that 
there is no Pole. That hollow there leads right 


122 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


into the centre of the earth ; or, through it, to the 
South Pole.” 

“Easily prove that ere, sir,” said Binny Scudds. 

“How, my man — how?” exclaimed the doctor, 
eagerly. “ You unlettered men sometimes strike 
upon rich veins.” 

“ You go and stand by the mouth of the hole at 
the South Pole, while we roll a big piece of ice 
down here. You could see, then, if it corned 
through. ” 

“Yes, we might try that, certainly,” said the 
doctor, thoughtfully. “ But then I ought to be at 
the South Pole, and I’m here, you see. We might 
roll that block down, though, and see the effect. 
Here, altogether, my lads — heave!” 

We all went up to a block about seven foot 
square ; but it was too big and heavy, and we could 
not make it budge an inch. 

“Hold hard a minute,” I said, and I scraped a 
hole beneath it, and poured in a lot of powder. 

“That’s good,” said the doctor. “That’s scien- 
tific,” and he stood rubbing his hands while I made 
a slow match; connected it; lit it; and then we 
all stood back, till, with a loud bang, the charge 
exploded, lifting the block of ice up five or six feet, 
and then, in place of splitting it in two as I meant, 
it came down whole, and literally fell into powder. 

“I say, don’t do that!” said a thick voice, and 
there, to our utter astonishment, sat among the 
broken ice, a heavy-looking, Dutch-built sailor, 
staring round, and yawning. “I’d have got up, 
if you had called me, ” he continued, “ without all 
that row.” 

“How did you get there?” said the doctor. 


SEYEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


123 


“ There? Where?” said the Dutchman. 

“In that block of ice,” said the doctor. 

“ Stuff about your block of ice, ” said the Dutch- 
man. “I lay down to sleep last night on the 
snow, while our lads were trying for seal, off 
Greenland. But I ? ll tell you all about it. 
Haven’t seen them, I suppose?” 

“No,” said Bostock, winking at us, “we have- 
n’t.” 

“They’ll be here directly, I dare say, when they 
miss me,” said the Dutchman. 

“I say, matey,” said Binney Scudds, “we’ve 
’bout lost our reckoning. What’s to-day?” 

“To-day,” said the Dutchman; “to-day’s the 
twenty -fourth of July, eighteen hundred and forty - 
two.” 

“ Thank you, my man, ” said the doctor. “ But 
perhaps you’ll tell us whom you are.” 

“Certainly,” said the Dutchman; “but keep a 
look-out for my mates,” and he began. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE DUTCH SAILOR’S YARN. 

As for my name, it is Daal, Jan Daal; and if 
there be any of my kinsfolk going about saying 
that they have the right to put a “Van” before 
their name, and that they come of the Van Daals, 
who were a great family in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and one of whom was boatswain of Admiral 
Van Tromp’s flag-ship, all I can answer is that 
they say the thing that is not; and that people 
who say such things deserve to be beaten by the 
beadle all up and down the United Provinces. 
When I was a little boy, and went to school to the 
Reverend Pastor Slagkop, there was a boy named 
Vries — Lucas Vries — who did nothing but eat gin- 
gerbread and tell lies. Well, what became of 
him? He was hanged before he was thirty — 
hanged at the yard-arm of a Dutch seventy -four at 
Batavia for piracy, mutiny, and murder : to which 
shameful end he had clearly been brought by eating 
gingerbread and telling fibs. Mind this, you little 
Dutch boys, and keep your tongues between your 
teeth and your stuyvers in your pockets, when you 
pass the cake shops, if you wish to escape the 
fate of Lucas Vries. 

And yet I dare say that — ah ! so many years ago 
— I was as fond of gingerbread as most yunkers of 
124 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


125 


my age, and that I did not always tell the strict 
truth either to my parents at home, or to the Kev- 
erend Pastor Slagkop at school (he was a red-head- 
ed man who always hit you with his left hand, and 
he had but one eye, which glared viciously upon 
you while he beat you). But now that I am old, 
it is clear that I have a right to give good advice to 
the young: even to the warning them not to be 
guilty of the transgressions of which I may have 
been guilty ever so many years ago ; because I have 
seen so much of the world, and have passed through 
so many dangers and trials, and have not been 
hanged. And this has always been my motto. 
When you are young, practise just as much or as 
little as you are able; but never forget to preach, 
whenever you can get anybody to listen to you. 
To yourself, you may do no good; but you may be, 
often, of considerable service to other people. A 
guide-post on the dyke of a canal is of some use, 
although it never goes to the place the way to 
which it points out. 

That which is now the Kingdom of the Nether- 
lands (Heaven preserve the King thereof, and the 
Crown Prince, and all their wives and families, and 
may they live long and prosper : such is the hope 
of Jan Daal, who drinks all their good healths in 
a tumbler of Schiedam) was in old times known 
(as you ought to be well aware, little boys) as the 
Kepublic of the United Provinces; and there was 
no King— only a kind of ornamental figurehead, 
not very richly gilt, who was a Prince of the House 
of Orange, and was called the Stadtholder: the 
real governors and administrators of the Confeder- 
ation being certain grand gentlemen called Their 


126 SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 

High Mightinesses. And very high and mighty 
airs did they give themselves; and very long robes, 
and very large periwigs, as flowing as a ship’s 
mainsail, did they wear, so I have heard my old 
father say many a time, ever so many years ago. 
Mynheer Van Bloomersdaal, in his “Pictures of 
the Glories of Holland” — how I hated that book 
when I had to learn a page of it, every day, by 
heart, and how I love it, now that nobody can com- 
pel me to remember even a line of it; but I do so 
for my own pleasure, — Mynheer Van Bloomers- 
daal, I say, has told us that the United Provinces 
are seven in number, and consist of Holland 
Proper, with Gueldres, Zealand, Friesland, 
Utrecht, Groningen, and Over-Yssel. By the 
deep, seven. Always be sure that you are right 
in your soundings; and take care to put fresh tal- 
low in your lead, to make sure what bottom you 
are steering to. 

I think that I must have been born some time 
toward the end of the last century, or the begin- 
ning of the present one, in the great city of Am- 
sterdam, which, after all, has the greatest right 
to be called the capital of Holland ; for The Hague, 
where the King lives and the Chambers meet, is, 
though a mighty fine place, only a big village, and 
a village is not a city any more than a treykscliuyt 
is a three-decker, or a boatswain an admiral. At 
the same time, mind you, if I was put on my oath 
before a court-martial, I would not undertake to 
swear that I may not have been born at Rotterdam, 
at Dordrecht, at Leyden, at Delft, or even at The 
Hague itself ; for, you see, my father was a pedler, 
and was continually wandering up and down the 


SEVEtf FROZEK SAILORS. 127 

country (or rather the canals, for he mostly trav- 
elled by treykschuyt), selling all kinds of small 
matters to whomsoever would buy, that he might 
keep his wife and small children in bread, cheese, 

. and salt herrings : which were pretty well all we 
had to live upon. But what does it matter where 
a fellow, was born? The great thing is to be born 
at all, and to take care to keep your watch, and to 
turn cheerfully out of your bunk when the hands 
are turned up to reef topsails in a gale. 

I know that, when I first began to remember 
anything, we were living in the city of Amsterdam, 
and in the very middle of the Jews’ quarter, which 
I shall always bear in mind as having five distinct 
and permanent smells— one of tobacco, one of 
Schiedam, one of red herrings, one of bilge water, 
one of cheese, and one of Jews. At Cologne, on 
the Rhine, they say there are seventy smells, all as 
distinct from one another as the different ropes of 
a ship; but I have not travelled much on the 
Rhine, and know much more about Canton than of 
Cologne. Although we lived among the Jews, 
my father was no Israelite : : — far from it. He was 
a good Protestant of the Calvinistic persuasion; 
and, in the way of business, sold many footwarm- 
ers (little boxes of wood and wire, to hold charcoal 
embers), for the churches. He chose to live among 
the Jews, because their quarter was a cheap one; 
and he could pick up the things he wanted more 
easily there than anywhere else; and, besides, 
Jews, for all the hard things that may be said 
about them, are not a bad sort of people to do 
business with. They are hard upon sailors, it is 
true, in the way of cheating them; yet they will 


128 


SEVE1T FROZEN SAILORS. 


always let a poor tar have a little money when he 
wants any ; and they are always good for a bite of 
biscuit, a cut of salt junk, and a rummer of Schie- 
dam. I wish I could say the same of all the 
Christians I could name, who are by no means 
bad hands at cheating you, and then turn you out 
of doors, hungry and thirsty, and without a shoe 
to your foot. I don’t say that a Jew won’t swin- 
dle you out of your shoes, and your stockings, too, 
in the way of business ; but he will always give 
you credit for a new set of slops, and this I have 
often said to our pursers aboard. Note this: that 
pursers are the biggest thieves that ever deserved 
to be flogged, pickled, tarred, keel-hauled, and 
then hanged. 

I had six brothers and sisters — so we might 
have called ourselves the Seven United Daals if we 
had had the wit to do so. There was Adrian, the 
eldest. He was a clever yunker, and was bound 
’prentice to a clock -maker. He went to England, 
and I have sometimes heard made a great deal of 
money there ; but he never sent us any of it — and 
what is the good of having a rich brother if he 
doesn’t let you share in his pay and prize money? 
My messmates always shared in my rhino when I 
had any ; and if your brother is not your messmate 
I should like to know who is. Another of my 
brothers, too, the second, Hendrik by name, did 
very well in life; fox being very quick at figures 
and ready with his pen, old Mr. Jacob Jacobson, 
the Israelitish money-changer, took a fancy to him 
and made him his clerk. He went away when he 
grew up, and for many long years I heard nothing 
about him; but it chanced once that, being at New 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


129 


York, to which port I had shipped from Macao, I 
had a draft for a hundred and fifty dollars to get 
cashed ; and the draft was on a firm of bankers who 
had their shop down by the Bowling Green, by the 
name of Van Daal, Peanut, and M‘Cute. The 
“Daal” struck me for a moment; but seeing the 
“ Van ’ 7 before it I concluded that the name could 
not belong to any of my folk, and took no more 
notice of it. I presented my bit of writing at the 
counter, and the paymaster’s clerk — a chap with a 
copper shovel in his flipper, as if he kept gold and 
silver by the shovelful in the hold — he gives me 
back the pay-note, and he says, “ Sign your name 
here, my man.” So I sign my name “ Jan Daal, 
mariner.” So he takes it into a little caboose be- 
hind the counter; and by-and-by out comes a 
short fat man with big whiskers, dressed as fine as 
a supercargo going out to dinner with his owner, 
and with a great watch-chain and seals, and his 
fingers all over diamond rings. “ You have an odd 
name, my friend,” he says, looking at me very 
hard. “It is Jan Daal,” I says, “and it is that 
which was given to me at the church font.” He 
reddened a little at this, and goes on, “What 
church?” “Saint Niklas,” I reply, “in the good 
city of Amsterdam, so I have heard my mother 
(rest her soul) say.” “And I, too,” he begins 
again, reddening more than ever, “ was christened 
at the Oude Sant Niklas Kerke; and I am of the 
Daals of Amsterdam, and I am your brother Hen- 
drik.” On this he embraced me; and I went along 
with him to the caboose behind the shop ; and he 
gave me crackers and cheese, and a dram of Schie- 
dam, and a pipe of tobacco to smoke. We had a 
9 


130 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


long talk about old times, and be told me how well 
he had got on in the world, and what great bankers 
he and his partners, Peanut and M‘Cute (one a 
Scotchman, t’other a Yankee, and both a match for 
all the Jacobsons that ever cheated you out of ten 
stuyvers in the guilder) were; but when I told him 
that I had met with no very great luck in life, and 
that the hundred and fifty dollars I was going to 
draw was all the money I had in the world, he did 
not seem quite so fond of me as before. “ And 
what do you call yourself Van Daal, brother of 
mine, for,” says I. “It’s not fair sailing. There 
are no more Vans in our family than in a brood of 
Mother Cary’s chickens.” At this he looks very 
high and mighty, and talks about different posi- 
tions in society, and industry and integrity, and 
all the rest of it. “If that’s the course you mean 
to steer, brother,” says I, “I wish you the middle 
of the stream, and a clear course, and a very good 
morning; only take you good care that you don’t 
run foul of some bigger craft than yourself that’s 
really called Van, and will run you down and send 
you to the bottom with all hands.” I was always 
a crusty old fellow, I dare say ; but I like neither 
ships nor skippers that give themselves names that 
don’t belong to them. If a ship’s name is the 
Mary Jane , let her sail as the Mary Jaiie, and not 
as the Highflier. If she changes her name, ten to 
one there’s something the matter with her. So I 
went back to the office, and says I to the clerk, 
“Now, old Nipcheese” — I called him “Nipcheese,” 
for he looked like a kind of purser — “ I want my 
hundred and fifty dollars — and that’s what’s the 
matter with me!” He paid me, looking as sour as 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


131 


lime-juice that has been kept too long, and deduct- 
ing (the stingy old screw!) four and a half per 
cent, for “commission;” and I went away, and 
spent my money like a gentleman, mostly in the 
grog-shops down by Greenwich Street. You may 
be sure that when it was all gone I didn’t go for 
any more to my high and mighty brother, Mynheer 
Van Daal. No, no; I went down to the wharf, 
and shipped on board a brigantine bound for New 
Orleans. I heard afterward that my brother the 
banker, with his messmates, Peanut the Yankee 
and M‘Cute the Scotchman, all went to Davy 
Jones’s locker — that is to say, they were bankrupt, 
and paid nobody. Now, I should like to know 
which of us was in the right? If I squandered my 
hundred and fifty dollars (less the four and a half 
per cent, for commission — and be hanged to that 
mouldy old Nipcheese, with his copper shovel!), 
it was, at least, my own cash, and I had worked 
hard for it ; but here were my fine banker-brother 
and his partners, who go and spend a lot of money 
— more than I ever heard of — that belonged to 
other people ! 

I was the third son. There was a fourth, 
called Cornelius, but he died when he was a baby. 
Then came three girls — Betje, Lotje, and Barbet. 
Lotje was a steady girl, who married a ship chand- 
ler at Rotterdam. He died poor, however, and 
left her with a lot of children. I am very fond of 
the yunkers, and try to be as kind to them (al- 
though I am such a crusty old fellow) as I can. 
Betje was a pretty girl, but too flighty, and a great 
deal too fond of dancing at kermesses. She died 
before she was eighteen of a consumption which 


132 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


was brought on, I fancy, more by her going out in 
silk stockings and thin shoes to dance at a ker- 
messe at the Loost Gardens of the Three Herrings 
at Scheveningen, than by anything else. For ours 
is a damp country, where there is more mud than 
solid earth, and more water than either; and you 
should take care to go as thickly shod as you can. 
But in winter time all is hard and firm ; and with 
a good pair of skates to your heels, a good pipe of 
tobacco in your mouth (though I like a quid bet- 
ter), and a good flask of Schiedam in your pocket, 
there’s no fear of your catching cold. Unfortu- 
nately, my poor Lotje could not smoke, and liked 
sweetmeats better than schnapps ; and so, with the 
aid of those confounded silk stockings and dancing- 
pumps, she must needs die, and be buried in the 
graveyard of the Oude Sant Niklas Kerke. It 
nearly broke my poor mother’s heart, and my 
father’s, too; although he was somewhat of a hard 
man, whose heart took a good deal of breaking. 
But now that I am an old, old man, I often think 
over my pipe (I smoke at night instead of chewing) 
and my grog, about pretty Lotje, with her fair 
hair curled up under a scalp of gilt plating, and 
her great blue eyes, — of her plump white arms, 
and her trim little feet, which she was all too 
fond, poor lass! of rigging up in silk stockings 
and pumps. But I should never have a word to 
say against kermesses, quotha! for I must, in 
time, have danced away some thousands of dollars 
to the sound of a fiddle, and with a buxom jung- 
vrauw for my partner, in pretty nearly all the 
grog-shops at pretty nearly every port on the map. 
For it was always my motto that when a man’s 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


133 


heels feel light he should forthwith begin to foot 
it in a hornpipe ; and when he feels thirsty, and 
has any rhino in his locker, he should pipe all 
hands for grog. This, the wiseacres will tell me, 
is the way to ruin one’s health, and die poor; but 
I am very old, and if I had any riches I couldn’t 
take them away with me to Fiddler’s Green, could 
I? Say! 

My youngest sister, Barbet, was not pretty, but 
she was very kind, and good, and quiet, and al- 
though she had been brought up in the very strict- 
est principles of Protestantism (that is to say, she 
used to get a sound whipping, as all of us did, if 
she went to sleep in church or forgot the text of 
the sermon), she took it into her head, when she 
grew up, to turn Romanist, and became a nun. 
She went away to a convent at Lille, in French 
Flanders (which, like Belgium, ought to belong to 
the Dutch), and we heard no more of her — only 
once, many years ago — when, for once in my life, 
I had made a little noise in the world by saving 
some poor fellow from drowning in a shipwreck, 
which led to the Minister of Marine sending me a 
gold medal and a purse full of guilders, and my 
name being published in the printed logs — I mean 
the newspapers — my poor sister Barbet (she had 
changed her name to Sister Veronica, I think, but 
that is all ship-shape in a nunnery) sent me a 
beautiful letter, saying that she always prayed for 
me, and enclosing me a pretty little image of Sant 
Niklas, worked in colored wools, on a bit of can- 
vas. I was glad to hear from my sister Barbet, 
and to hear that Oude Sant Niklas was a Catholic 
as well as a Protestant saint (as a good ship, you 


134 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


see, is as tight a craft under one flag as under an- 
other) ; and I wore the image, and wear it now, 
next my heart, as a charm against drowning, in- 
stead of the child’s caul which I bought when I 
was young in High Street, Wapping, England. It 
cost me ten pounds, but the dealer took it out half 
in “swop;” that is to say, I gave him two pounds 
in silver, two Spanish doubloons, a five-pound 
note, a green parrot, that swore quite beautifully, 
a coral necklace, and a lot of uncut jewels, I 
picked up in the Black Town at Calcutta, and 
that must have come to about the value of ten 
pounds, I reckon.* 

You may wonder, when I have told you of the 
humble way of business in which my father was, 
of the number of yunkers he had to keep, and all 
out of the slender profits of a pedler’s pack, and of 
the poor way we lived, that we went to church, or 
to school, at all. But my dad was a highly re- 
spectable man, who never drank more schnapps 
than was good for him, except when he had the 
ague, which was about once every spring and au- 
tumn, and once in the winter, with, perhaps, a 
touch of it in the middle of the summer ; and my 
mother was a notable housewife, who scrubbed her 
three rooms and her seven children, her pots and 
pans, and her chairs and tables, all day, and, on 
Saturdays, nearly all night, long. It is fortunate 
for such things as pots and pans, and chairs and 
tables, that they haven’t any human feelings — at 
least, I never heard a table talk, although I have 

* It would seem that the dealer in High Street, Wapping, 
got slightly the better of honest Jan Daal in this transac- 
tion. But business is business. — E d. 


SEVEN - FROZEN - SAILORS. 


135 


read in the newspapers of their spinning precious 
long yarns for fools and madmen to listen to (but 
what can you expect from newspapers but lies?) — 
or they would have squalled for certain, as we used 
to do under our mother’s never-ending scrubbing 
and scouring. When the soap got into our eyes, 
we used to halloa, and then she used .to dry our 
tears with a rough towel — I mean a towel made of 
a bunch of twigs, tied together at one end with 
some string. My mother was the most excellent 
woman that ever lived; but she had a strange idea 
in her head that all children wanted physic, and 
that the very best doctor’s stuff in the world was a 
bireh rod, and plenty of it. Perhaps my physick- 
ings did me no harm ; at least, they prepared me 
for the precious allowances of kicks, cuffs, and 
ropes-endings I got when I went to sea. 

I went to sea, because, when I was about ten 
years old, my father thought that I had had enough 
schooling. I thought that I had had enough to last 
me for a lifetime ; for the Eeverend Pastor Slagkop 
had a monstrous heavy hand ; but at least he had 
taught me to read and write, and to cast accounts 
— and that it was about time for me to set about 
earning my own livelihood, which my elder broth- 
ers were already doing. I was quite of his way of 
thinking, for I was a hai’d-working boy, and was 
tired of eating the bread of idleness ; only my dad 
and I didn’t exactly agree as to the precise manner 
by which I should earn a living. He wanted me 
to wander with him, mostly by treykschuyt, or 
canal -boat, up and down the United Provinces, 
helping him to carry his pack, and trying to sell 
the clocks, watches, cutlery, spoons, hats, caps, 


136 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


laces, stockings, gloves, and garters, in which, and 
a hundred things besides, he traded. But I didn’t 
like the pedler business. I was never a good hand 
at making a bargain, and when I had to sell things, 
I was just as bad a salesman. I let the customers 
beat me down; and then my father, who was a just 
man, but dreadfully severe, beat me. Besides, to 
make a good pedler, you must tell no end of lies, 
and the telling of lies (although sailors are often 
said to spin yarns as tough as the chairs and ta- 
bles pretend to do) was never in my line. Again, 
although I was of a roving disposition, and de- 
lighted in change, my native country had no 
charms for me. At the seaports, where there were 
big ships, I was as pleased as Punch; but, inland, 
the country seemed to me to be alway s the same — 
flat, marshy, and stupid, with the same canals, the 
same canal-boats, the same windmills, the same 
cows, the same farmhouses, the same church stee- 
ples, the same dykes, the same dams, and the same 
people smoking the same pipes, or sliding to mar- 
ket in winter time, when the canals were frozen, 
on the same skates. To make an end of it, a ped- 
ler’ s life was to me only one degree above that of a 
beggar; for you had to be always asking somebody 
to buy your goods; and I have always hated to ask 
favors of people. I told my father so; but he 
would not hear of my turning to any trade, and 
there being no help for it, I had to help him at 
pedlering for a good two years, although I fancy 
that he lost more money than he gained by my 
lending him a hand. But, when I was twelve 
years of age, and feeling stouter and stronger — and 
I was taller for my age than most Dutch boys are — 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


137 


I told ray father flatly that I had had enough of 
pedlering, and that if he did not let me try to find 
some other calling, I would run away. He told 
me, for an ungrateful young hound as I was, that 
I might run away to Old Nick if I chose — not the 
Sant Niklas of the Oude Kerke, but a very differ- 
ent kind of customer. “Thank you, father, ” said 
I, beginning to tie up my few things in a bundle. 
“Stop,” says he. “Here’s five guilders for you. 
I don’t want you to starve for the first few days, 
while you are seeking for work, graceless young 
calf as you are!” — “Thank you, father, again,” I 
says, pocketing both the guilders and the compli- 
ment. “And stop again, my man,” he says; “and 
take this along with you, with my blessing, for 
your impudence!” With this, he seizes me by the 
collar, gets my head between his legs, and, with 
the big leathern strap he used to bind his pack 
with, he gives me the soundest thrashing I ever 
had in my life. That’s the way to harden boys! 
It was in the middle of January, and pretty sharp 
weather, when we had this explanation. It was 
at our home at Amsterdam ; and my good mother 
sat crying bitterly in a corner, with my little sis- 
ters clinging to her, and^qualling ; but as I walked 
out of the house forever, I felt as hot all through 
me as though it had been the middle of July. 

I walked from Amsterdam to Rotterdam stead- 
ily, bent upon going to sea. Of course, I had 
never as yet made a voyage, even in a fishing-boat; 
but I had been up and down all the canals in Hol- 
land ever since I was a child ; and I fancied that 
the ocean was only a very large canal, and that a 
sea-going ship was only a very big treykschuyt. 


138 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


In a large port like Rotterdam I thought that there 
would be no difficulty in finding a craft, the skip- 
per of which would give me a berth aboard ; and, 
indeed, throughout a very long life I have usually 
found that it does not matter a stuyver how poor, 
ignorant, and friendless a boy may be, there is 
always room for him at sea, if he sets his mind 
steadily on finding a ship. Mind, I don’t say that 
he won’t be the better sailor for the book-learning 
he may have been lucky enough to pick up. I 
never despised book-learning, although no great 
scholar myself ; but a boy should learn to use his 
hands as well as his eyes. He should have a trade, 
never mind what it is; but it must be a trade that 
he can earn pay, and lay a little prize-money by, 
now and then; and a scholar without a trade is but 
a poor fellow. He may turn parson, or schoolmas- 
ter, to be sure; but it would be a mighty queer 
ship, I reckon, aboard which the captain was a 
parson, and the bo’sun a schoolmaster, and the 
crew a pack of loblolly -boys, with their brains full 
of book-learning, and nothing else. 

I wasn’t so very quick, though, as I thought, in 
my boyish foolishness, that I should be, in finding 
a ship at Rotterdam. Indeed, when I got down 
to the Boompjes, and boarded the craft lying at 
anchor there, I think I must have tried five-and- 
twenty before I could find a skipper who would as 
much as look at me, much less offer me a berth. 
“ If you please, do you want a boy ?” was my in- 
variable question. Some of the skippers said that 
they had more boys than they knew what to do 
with; others, that boys were more trouble than 
they were worth, which worth did not amount to 


SEVE# FROZE# SAILORS. 


139 


the salt they ate. Off the poop of one ship I was 
kicked by a skipper, who had had too much Schie- 
dam for breakfast; from the gangway of another I 
was shoved ashore by a quartermaster, who didn’t 
like boys; one bo’ sun’s mate gave me a starting 
with a rope’s-end, as he swore that I had come 
aboard to steal something; and -another pulled my 
ears quite good-naturedly (although he made my 
ears very sore), and told me to go back to school, 
and mind my book, and that a sailor’s life was too 
rough for me. There was one captain — he was in 
the China trade — who said that he would take me 
as a ’prentice if my father would pay a hundred 
and fifty guilders for my indentures; and another, 
who offered to ship me as cook’s mate; but I knew 
nothing about cooking, and had to tell him so, with 
tears in my eyes. I was nearly reduced to despair, 
when one skipper — he was only the master of a 
galliot, trading between Rotterdam and Yarmouth, 
in England — seeing that I was a stout, bright-eyed 
lad, likely to be a strong haul on a rope, and a 
good hand at a winch or a windlass, told me that 
he would take me on first for one voyage, and see 
what wages I was worth when we came back again. 
He advanced me a guilder or two, to buy some sea- 
going things; so that, with the trifle my father 
had given me, when he dismissed me with his 
blessing and a thrashing, I did not go to sea abso- 
lutely penniless. 

I have been at sea sixty years ; yet well do I rec- 
ollect the first day that I shipped on board the gal- 
liot Jungvrauw , at Rotterdam, bound for Great 
Yarmouth, England. When I got on board the 
vessel was just wearing out of port, and, thinking 


140 


SEVEK FROZEH SAILORS. 


that about the best thing I could do was to begin 
to make myself useful at once, I tailed on to a rope 
that some of the crew were hauling in ; and the 
next thing I begru to learn was to coil a rope. 
There’s only two ways to do it— a right one and a 
wrong one. The right way is to coil it the way 
the sun goes round. And then I learned that about 
the surest manner in which a young sailor can get 
a knowledge of his trade is to watch how his ship- 
mates set about doing their work. He may be 
laughed at, grumbled at, or sworn at, but at last 
he’ll learn his duty, and that’s something. 

If I were to tell you all the wonderful things 
that have happened to me, man and boy, as car- 
penter, bo’ sun, third mate, second mate, and first 
mate — I never had the luck to rise to be a skipper 
— I am afraid that you wouldn’t believe half the 
yarns I could spin for you. I’ve been in both the 
Indies, and in both the Americas, and in our own 
Dutch Colony of Java, and in China and Japan 
(where the Dutch used to have a mighty fine fac- 
tory) over and over again. I’ve been in action; 
and was wounded once by a musket-ball, which 
passed right through the nape of my neck. I’ve 
been a prisoner of war, and I was once nearly 
taken by a Sallee rover. I’ve had to fight with 
the Dutch for the French, and with the French 
against the Dutch, and with the Dutch for the 
English. I’ve had the yellow fever over and over 
again. I’ve had my leg half bitten off by a shark; 
and if anybody tells you that a shark won’t eat 
niggers, tell him, with my compliments, that he 
doesn’t know what he’s talking about, for I saw a 
shark bite a nigger that had fallen overboard, right 


SEVEtf FROZEX SAILORS. 


141 


in two, in the harbor of Havana. I don’t say that 
the shark doesn’t like white flesh best. The black 
man, perhaps, he locks upon as mess beef, not very 
prime ; but the white man he considers as pork or 
veal, and the nicer of the two. At all events he’ll 
eat nigger if he’s hungry, and a shark’s always 
hungry. 

Perhaps the strangest thing that ever happened 
to me in the course of all my voyages was in con- 
nection with a lot of swallows, and I’ll wind up 
my yarn with this one, first because it’s short, and 
next because I think it’s got something that’s 
pretty about it, and will please the yunkers and 
the vrauws; and, old man-like, I always like to 
please them. It was about thirty years ago, and 
in the middle of September, that I signed articles 
at Liverpool as second mate of a brig bound to 
Marseilles, Barcelona, in Spain, Gibraltar ( that 
belongs to the Englanders), Oran, and Algiers. 
The middle of September mind. The name of the 
brig was the Granite , and the skipper, Captain 
Marbles, a Yorkshireman, was about the hardest 
commander I ever sailed under. He never swore 
at the men,— that they wouldn’t have much mind- 
ed; but he was always turning up the hands for 
punishment; and punishment in the merchant ser- 
vice, thirty years ago, was little less severe than 
it was in the navy. Indeed, it was often more un- 
just, and more cruel; for when a merchant skipper 
flogged a man he was generally drunk, or in a fear- 
fully bad temper; whereas on board a man-o’-war 
a sailor was never punished in cold blood, and had 
at least some show of a trial. I must do Captain 
Marbles the credit to say that he was never half 


142 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


seas over; but on the other hand he was always in 
a bad temper. On me he dared not lay a linger, 
for I was an officer, and I would have knocked 
him down with a marlinspike had he struck me; 
but he led the foremast-men and the boys, of whom 
we had at least half a dozen aboard — principally, 
I fancy, because the Captain liked to torture boys 
• — a terrible life. Well, we had discharged cargo 
at Marseilles, and taken in more at Barcelona. 
We had put in at Gibraltar, and after clearing out 
from the Bock were shaping our course with a 
pretty fair wind for Oran, when, one evening — * 
now what in the world do you think happened? 

The swallow, you know, is a bird that, like our 
stork, cannot abide the cold. He is glad enough 
to come and see us in summer, when the leaves are 
green, and the sun shines brightly ; but so soon as 
ever the weather begins to grow chilly, off goes 
Mr. Swallow to the Pyramids of Egypt, or the 
Desert of Sahara, or some nice, warm, comfortable 
place of that kind. He generally arrives in our 
latitudes about the second week in April ; and he 
cuts his stick again for hot winter quarters toward 
the end of September. I’ve heard book-learned 
gentlemen say that the birds almost always fly in 
a line, directly north and south, influenced, no 
doubt, by the magnetic current which flows forever 
and ever in that direction. Well, on the afternoon 
to which my yarn relates, our course was due south, 
and, just before sunset, we saw a vast space of the 
sky astern absolutely darkened by the largest flight 
of birds I ever saw, winging their way together. 
As a rule, I’ve been told, the swallows don’t mi- 
grate in large flocks, but in small families. This, 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


143 


however, m ist have been an exception to the rule, 
for they appeared absolutely to number thousands ; 
and what should they do'when they neared us but 
settle down in their thousands on the masts and 
rigging of the brig Granite. They were tired, poor 
things, no doubt, with long flying; and I have 
been told that it is a common custom for them to 
rest themselves on the riggings of ships. But 
there were so many of them this time that the very 
deck was covered with them, and vast numbers 
more fluttered below, into the forecastle and the 
captain’s cabin. The skipper ordered the hatches 
to be battened down, and all was made snug for 
the night. In the morning the birds on the deck 
and the rigging were gone, but we had still hun- 
dreds of swallows in the hold and in the cabin, and 
the noise the poor creatures made to be let out was 
most pitiable— indeed, it was simply heartrending. 
It was like the cry of children. It sounded like, 
“For God’s sake, let us go free!” Captain Mar- 
bles — I have said so before — was a hard man, but 
he could not stand the agonized twittering of the 
wretched little birds ; and as he ordered me to have 
the hatches opened, I noticed that there were two 
great tears coursing down his stern, weather-beaten 
cheeks. He had, for the first time in his life, per- 
haps, become acquainted with a certain blessed 
thing called pity. Nor did we fail to notice after- 
ward that he was not half so hard on the boys we 
had aboard. Perhaps he remembered the cry of 
the swallows. 

That’s my yarn. There’s nothing very grand 
about it; but, at least, it’s true. As true, I mean, 
as old sailors’ yarns usually are. 


144 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


“Gone!” cried the doctor, as the Dutchman, a 
minute before solid in appearance, suddenly col- 
lapsed into air and moisture, which directly be- 
came ice. “If I hadn’t been so polite I might 
have stopped him. I suppose the effort of telling 
their histories exhausts them.” 

“Well, sir, it’s jolly interesting!” said Bostock. 

“Yes, my man,” said the doctor; “but there’s 
no science in it. What is there in his talk about 
how he came here, or for me to report to the 
learned societies?” 

“Can’t say, I’m sure, sir,” I said; “only, the 
discoveries.” 

“ Yes, that will do, Captain. But come, let’s 
find another?” 

We all set to eagerly, for the men now thor- 
oughly enjoyed the task. The stories we heard 
enlivened the tedium, and the men, far from being 
afraid now, went heartily into the search. 

“ Shouldn’t wonder if we found a nigger friz up 
here, mates,” said Binny Scudds. 

“ Or a Chine-hee,” said one of the men. 

“Well, all I can say,” exclaimed Bostock, “is 
this here. I don’t want to be made into a scientific 
speciment.” 

“ Here y’are !” shouted one of the men. “ Here’s 
one on ’em!” 

“Get out!” said Binny Scudds, who had run to 
the face of a perpendicular mass of ice, where the 
man stood with his pick. “ That ain’t one!” 

“Tell yer it is,” said the man. “That’s the 
’airs of his ’ead sticking out;” and he pointed to 
what appeared to be dark threads in the white, 
opaque ice. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


145 


“Tell you, he wouldn’t be standing up,” said 
Binny Scudds. 

“Why not, if he was frozen so, my men?” said 
the doctor. “Yes; that’s a specimen. This ice 
has been heaved up.” 

“Shall we fetch him out with powder,” said 
Bostock. 

“Dear me, no!” said the doctor. “Look! that 
ice is laminated. Try driving in wedges.” 

Three of the men climbed onto the top, and be- 
gan driving in wedges, when the ice split open 
evenly, leaving the figure of what appeared to be 
a swarthy-looking Frenchman, exposed as to the 
face ; but he was held in tightly to the lower half 
of the icy case, by his long hair. 

“ Blest if he don’t look jest like a walnut with 
one shell off!” growled Scudds; but he was silent 
directly, for the Frenchman opened his eyes, stared 
at us, smiled, and opened his lips. 

“Yes; thank you much, comrades. You have 
saved me. I did not thus expect, when we went 
drift, drift, drift north, in the little vessel, with 
the rats ; but listen, you shall hear. I am a man 
of wonderful adventure. You take me for a 
ghost?” 

Bostock nodded. 

“Brave lads! brave lads!” said the Frenchman; 
“but it is not that I am. I have been taken for a 
ghost before, and prove to my good friends that I 
am not. I prove to you I am not; but a good, 
sound, safe, French matelot ! — sailor, you call 
it.” 

“ I should like to hear you, ” said Binny Scudds, 
in a hoarse growl. 

10 


146 


SEVERN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


“ You shall, my friend, who has helped to save 
me.” 

“Let it be scientific, my friend,” said the 
doctor. 

“It shall, sir — it shall,” said the Frenchman. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE FRENCH SAILOR’S YARN. 

I am master of the yacht Zephire ; at least I was 
her master. A hundred fathoms of green water 
roll over her masts now. Fishes of monstrous 
shape feed on our good stores. For anything I 
know, a brood of young sea-serpents is at this mo- 
ment in possession of my hammock. Let be, I 
will tell the story of the Zephire. Ten years ago 
an American vessel lay off the little port of Bene- 
vent, in the south of France. The time was high 
noon; the month, August. The day was bright. 
The sunbeams danced over the white spray and 
green waves. A boat put off for the shore. I, 
Pierre Crepin, sat in the stern and held the rudder- 
lines. My heart was full of joy. I had been born 
in Benevent; my friends were there— if they were 
alive. My mother, with good Aunt Lisette, in the 
little cottage by the hill-side. My old companions 
drinking white wine at “The Three Magpies.” 
All the old faces I knew — had known from child- 
hood — loved better than anything else in the world. 
I could throw a stone to where they sat. I could 
almost hear them talk. “Pull, my comrades, 
pull!” I grow impatient; I, the lost found; I, the 
dead returned to life; I, Pierre Crepin, back in 
Benevent. Who will believe it? For some time 
147 


148 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


I must seem the ghost of myself. My old compan- 
ions will put down their glasses and stare. Then 
they will fill them to the brim and drink the health 
of Pierre Crepin, till the rooftree of “ The Three 
Magpies” echoes with “Pierre — Pierre Crepin, wel- 
come back!” And my mother, she will know the 
footsteps of her son on the pebbles. She will rush 
out to fold me to her heart. And good Aunt Lis- 
ette! She is feeble — it will be almost too much 
for her. And 

The boat’s keel grates harshly on the shingle. 
“Steady!” say the seamen. I make my adieux 
tenderly, for they have been too kind to me. I 
wring their hands ; I leap ashore. They go back 
to their ship. I turn my steps first to the little 
whitewashed cottage on the hill-side. 

Is it necessary for me to tell how my mother 
embraces me. Poor Aunt Lisette! She knows I 
am back; but she is not here to welcome me. She 
is at rest. At last I have told all. It is night 
now, and I am free to go to the kitchen of “ The 
Three Magpies.” 

There it is. “Mon Dieu!” “Impossible; it is 
his ghost!” I soon convince them that it is, in- 
deed, I myself. The news spreads over the mar- 
ket place. “Pierre Crepin is come back to Bene- 
vent. After all, he is not drowned; he is alive 
and well.” The kitchen of “The Three Magpies” 
will not hold the crowd. Antoine, the drawer, 
cannot pull the corks fast enough. My eyes fill 
with tears. The brave fellows are too good to me. 
I must tell them my story. Pouches are drawn 
out ; pipes and cigars are lighted ; glasses are filled 
for the twentieth time. I begin my yarn. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


149 


You see me, my good friends, safely back in 
Benevent. It is four years since I parted from 
you. The ship in which I sailed from Marseilles 
was wrecked on a coral reef. All hands were lost. 
The last I saw alive was Marc Debois. He had 
seized a spar, and was struggling manfully for life. 
There are sharks in those seas. The waves ran 
high, and the foam of the breakers blinded me. I 
was safe on the land. I could not help Marc, but 
I watched him. A great wave came. It rolled on 
toward my feet. 

There was a patch of blood on the water, min- 
gling with the white foam of the breakers, then 
disappearing. Poor Marc had met his fate. All 
was over. I saw him no more. The spar to 
which he had clung was washed ashore at my feet. 
I was alone, wet, cold, wretched. I envied Marc. 
Shaking myself, I ran along the shore, to restore 
to my drenched limbs heat and life. Then I 
climbed a precipitous crag — one of a line that 
stretched along the shore as far as the eye could 
see. But I must not become tedious with my tale. 

“ Go on, Pierre Crepin!” they all cried. 

Well, then, I continued, the island was desolate, 
uninhabited. There were fruits and berries, tur- 
tles, young birds in nests. Long times of dry 
weather under a tropical sun. In this I made a 
lire day after day by rubbing sticks together till I 
could kindle the dry leaves. Then came seasons 
of wet of weeks together. In these I had no fire, 
and had to subsist on berries and fruits, and the 
eggs of sea-fowl. I was there, as it seemed, an 
age. It was three years. I had long given up all 
hope of seeing Benevent or men again. My island 


150 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


was about nine leagues round. On the highest hill, 
by the shore, I raised a mast. In a cleft in it I 
struck a piece of plank. On the plank I wrote, 
with white chalk — • 

“au SECOURS! PIERRE CREPIN!” 

This I renewed as the rains washed out my char- 
acters. At last help came. Unshaven, ragged, 
unkempt, I was taken on board an American vessel 
that had been driven by stress of weather far out 
of her course. And I am here. 

My narrative ended, I was plied with a thousand 
questions, and it was not until mine host closed 
his doors for the night, and thrust us good-humor- 
edly into the street, that I was able to bid my 
friends good-night, and turn my steps toward my 
mother’s cottage — that cottage where the dear soul 
awaited me with the anxiety of a mother who has 
mourned her only son as lost. That cottage where 
the soft bed of my boyish days, spread for me, 
with snowy linen, by the kindest of hands, had 
been ready for me these three hours. But I was 
not unattended. My friends, some dozen of them, 
would see me home to my mother’s door — would 
wring her hand in hearty congratulation at my re- 
turn. 

In the morning you may be sure I had plenty of 
callers. It was like a levee. They began to come 
before I was up, but my mother would not suffer 
that I should be waked. And I, who had not slept 
in a Christian bed for years, slept like a top, and 
slept it out. 

I was sitting at my breakfast of cutlets, omec 


SEVEN" FROZEN" SAILORS. 


151 


lette, and white wine, when Cecile knocked at the 
door of the cottage. 

“Enter!” said my mother. 

“ Ah, Cecile!” I cried; “but not the Cecile I left 
at Benevent when I went away.” 

For she was altered. She had grown more mat- 
ronly. The loveliness of her girlhood had gone. 

It had given place to the more mature beauty of 
womanhood. What a difference four years makes 
to a girl! 

“ Pierre, ” she cries, “ we are so glad to see you 
back! You bring us news— the news we all want 
- — that I want.” 

She looked impatiently toward me. Perhaps her 
eyes expressed more to me than her words ; for her * 
mother was Spanish, and Cecile had her mother’s 
great, black, saucer eyes, with their long fringe of 
jet lashes. Still, her look was not what I had ex- 
pected to see. She wore sad-colored draperies, but 
she was not in mourning. Her dress was rich, of 
Lyons silk, and this surprised me; for her people 
were poor, and a sailor’s widow is not always too 
well off at Benevent. Seamen are, not uncom- 
monly, judges of merchandise. Do we not trade 
with the Indies, and a thousand other outlandish 
places? In this way it came about that I invol- 
untarily counted up the cost of Cecile’ s costly habit 
and rich lace. But this mental inventory took 
hardly a second — certainly, less time than it takes 
me to tell. 

“ Cecile, ” I said, “ my poor girl, I wish that I 
could tell you good news. Your husband sailed 
with me. It was his lot to be one of the less lucky 
ones. Marc ” 


152 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“Is dead!” said Cecile, calmly. “I knew it all 
along — these three years. I felt it. Something 
told me long ago Marc was dead!” 

She said this so quietly that I was astonished — 
perhaps a little shocked. Sailors’ widows in Ben- 
event mourn their husbands’ loss for years. My 
mother was a sailor’s widow ever since I knew her. 
No offer of a new ring could ever tempt her to 
throw aside the old one. She was true as Love. 

I replied, with something of choking in my 
throat, but with hardness in my face, “ Marc is 
dead, Cecile! He was drowned!” — for I could not 
bring myself to tell this beautiful woman, whom he 
had loved as only an honest sailor can love, the 
story of his fate, as I had told it to the comrades 
in the kitchen of “ The Three Magpies” the night 
before. I desired to spare her this. 

“So Marc is dead!” Cecile repeated, impas- 
sively. “ Dead — as I always thought and said he 
was dead! Drowned! You saw it, Pierre?” 

“The good God forgive me!” I said, “I saw 
it!” 

As I said before, I held a levee that day in the 
parlor of my mother’s cottage. It gladdened my 
eyes, who would have worked my finger-nails below 
the quicks to save her from wanting anything — to 
see that the good soul was surrounded by the signs 
of plenty. She had wanted for nothing. Old Jean 
had tilled her piece of garden -ground to some pur- 
pose, and had never taken a sou as recompense for 
his work. Everybody had been kind to her. It 
brought tears into my eyes to hear of it. Her 
kitchen told a tale of plenty. From the smoke- 
blackened oak beams hung hams and flitches of ba- 


SEVEST EROZEH SAILORS. 


153 


con more than one would take the trouble to count. 
Bunches of garlic and strings of onions were there 
in plenty ; and the great black kettle hanging al- 
ways over the pine-wood fire, sent forth savory 
steams, that made your heart leap into your mouth. 
The Widow Crepin’s was a pot-au-feu worth eating, 
I can tell you. Nor did we fail to wash down our 
food with draughts of good wine on every day of 
the week. I gave a supper that night to some of 
my friends. I had not quite forgotten the impres- 
sion Cecile had made upon 'me in the morning. 
For Marc, the second officer, had been my friend 
ever since I could recollect sweetstuff. But we 
were merry together, talking of the old times, of 
my adventures in the desert island, of the good 
ship that had brought me safely back to Benevent, 
and of other things. 

Presently the name of Cecile was mentioned. 

I shuddered involuntarily. 

I knew bad news was coming from the tone of 
the speakers. 

I guessed what it would be, and blew angry 
clouds from my long wooden pipe. 

“ Pierre — Pierre Crepin, has Cecile Debois been 
here to see you?” 

“ She has. She was here this morning.” 

“She is well off!” said one. 

“ She has to want for nothing!” said another. 

And they shook their heads wisely, as those do 
who know more than they say. 

“What of Cecile?” I asked, with somewhat of 
anger in my tone. 

“Do you not know?” 

“Did she not tell you?” 


154 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


“I know she is poor Marc’s widow. She told 
me nothing.” 

“Ah, ah! She wanted the news of Marc’s 
death! She will be married to M. Andre, the mer- 
chant! There has this long while been a talk of 
them in Benevent, and, for the. matter of that, for 
miles round!” 

“M. Andre!” I cried. “But he is elderly — old 
enough to be her father!” 

“‘Old men — old fools,’ as the saying is!” put in 
Father Lancrac. He was old enough to know. 
I did not gainsay him. It is well to treat one’s 
elders with respect. And old M. Lancrac, my 
mother’s good friend and kinsman, was in his dot- 
age. Besides, now others aimed their darts at her, 
I felt inclined to excuse Cecile. 

“It is well,” I said. “Women marry again in 
Benevent, I suppose, as anywhere else in the world. 
Why not Cecile?” 

Hearing me say this, and marking some stern- 
ness in my tone, they all said, “Ay, ay! Why 
not? She is a fine woman, and is to make a good 
match that we all ought to be proud of! Poor 
Marc is dead!” And so forth. 

We puffed our pipes some time in silence, those 
of us who smoked. The others counted my moth- 
er’s hams and flitches of bacon, and the strings of 
onions throwing flickering shadows in the lamp- 
light But old age will not be silent. 

Father Lancrac said, for his part, he wished he 
was Merchant Andre. He would marry again. 
Who would have him? He was better than most 
of the young ones now. 

And the women folk laughed. 


SEYEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


155 


Lawyers are adroit. After this, the notary, Gas- 
pard, who had honored us with his company — he 
had known my father —turned the conversation. 
He asked me questions about my adventures in the 
island, my mode of life, how I counted time, my 
subsistence, and such things. In this way our 
evening passed away, and we parted, as good 
friends should part — merry. 

But it happened sooner than I had expected. 
Cecile and M. Andre were married a fortnight af- 
ter. That was a scene, indeed, which will not 
soon be forgotten. The bride looked lovely, and 
M. Andre, worthy man, wore an appearance ten 
years younger than his real age, he was so happy. 

Madame Andre! I thought of her as the wife of 
my old comrade, Marc. I recalled the humble 
nuptials of six years before. I seemed to see her 
as she stood before us then — girlish, beautiful, 
graceful, in her home-made bridal gown. Now 
her own friends were not grand enough to be bid- 
den to the feast. But M. Andre’s well supplied 
their place. We, however, were permitted to look 
on — to cheer, huzza, and wish them both joy. 

Her mother’s house was too small for her to be 
married from. She was taken to the Mairie by her 
second spouse from the house of one of his rela- 
tives; and, in her white dress and veil, she looked 
more dazzlingly lovely than any woman I had ever 
seen. 

After the ceremonial at the church, there was a 
dejeuner , to which all the best people of Benevent 
were invited. The newly married pair were to 
spend their honeymoon at a chateau of M. Andre’s, 


156 


SEVEN" FROZEN" SAILORS. 


some three leagues from Benevent, in the hills, 
overlooking the sea. A carriage and pair of horses, 
with a postilion in a gay jacket, waited to take 
them there. Bound the carriage, on the footway 
and in the road, was a crowd of people, curious to 
see all that there was to be seen, and desirous of 
giving bride and bridegroom “ God-speed l” when 
they drove off. 

I passed the place by accident, for I had not in- 
tended to be there. I had taken my stout stick in 
my hand, meaning to try a walk up the hills, by 
the coach road. 

By chance I had passed the house where the 
bride and bridegroom were breakfasting. By 
chance I had found myself one of the crowd. A 
crowd impresses upon one its sympathies. I loi- 
tered among them — not long ; — long enough to see 
a man, with a beard and tanned face, hurriedly 
asking some questions. I could not get near him 
for the people. Then, as hurriedly, he strode 
away, with great, heavy strides. 

The face I did not know — I had caught but a 
hurried glance of it ; but the broad shoulders, the 
strong limbs, the walk of the man, I did know. 

A terrible feeling came over me. 

My knees trembled under me. 

My face was white as paper. 

I could have fallen to the ground. 

For I knew the walk was the walk of Marc! 

And these three years he had been dead! 

With the emotions called forth by this untimely 
apparition, do you suppose that I remained in the 
crowd in the narrow street? — that I desired to 
“huzza!” as M. Andre and Cecile drove away? I 


SEVERN - FROZEN" SAILORS. 


157 


was stifled. I wanted air — to breathe — to breathe! 
I sought it, by turning my steps to the hills as fast 
as my trembling limbs would carry me. 

It was the road he had taken. 

Should I see him again? 

I gathered strength. I walked fast — faster. I 
ran till I was out of breath. I stopped and sat 
down on a great moss-grown stone. 

A lovely landscape spread out below me. It was 
years since I had seen it. The rivers flowing 
through a champagne country to the sea. The 
white houses and thatched roofs of the villages: 
the red-brick streets of Benevent. How well I 
knew it all! It recalled memories of the past. 
The thought flashed upon me in an instant. 

The last time I was here was with] Marc. We 
desired again to take our walk — to see our old 
haunts of bird’s-nesting and berry -gathering. It 
was the day before he married Cecile. 

I rose, wiped the perspiration from my brow, 
and continued my ascent. I reached the highest 
level of the coach road, where, for half a league, it 
takes its course through a narrow defile between 
two precipitous hills, whose rocky sides no time can 
change. I looked back. 

The open carriage containing Cecile and her hus- 
band I could see on the road, far in the distance. 
They were driving at a good pace. “ They will 
pass me in the defile,” I said, and hurried on. 
Why, I knew not. Presently the sound of wheels 
on the soft, sandy road was plain enough to the 
ear. 

Nearer and nearer came the rumble. There 
were some juniper bushes of giant growth a little 


158 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


further on the road. It was a question which 
would reach them first, the chaise or I. 

I had the start; but horses are quicker on their 
legs than men. 

As it turned out, we reached them almost to- 
gether. I was slightly in advance, however. 

The road here was very narrow. Two vehicles 
could hardly pass. I took to the rough grass. 
Pushing aside the boughs of a bush that was di- 
rectly in my path, and intending to take my stand 
before it, and wave my hat as the carriage passed, 
I came suddenly upon — Marc! 

It was he! 

He stood with a wild fire of jealousy in his eyes, 
his hat on the grass beside him ; his arm raised, 
a pistol in his hand, his finger on the trigger! 

It was a supreme moment. 

My Courage did not desert me. Iwas calm. 

The carriage was passing. 

I made a dash at his arm, to strike the weapon 
from his hand. I stumbled and fell at his feet. 
Instantly I looked up. I wished to shout, but my 
tongue refused its office. It was glued, parched, 
to the roof of my mouth. There would be murder! 
Cecile would be killed — and by Marc! My eyes 
were riveted on the trigger of his pistol! He 
pulled it! There was a tiny flash — a tiny puff! 
No more! The weapon had missed fire. We 
were concealed by the bushes. The carriage drove 
by at a rapid pace. Cecile was saved for the 
time ! 

I gave a sigh of relief. Then came upon me the 
feeling of wonder that Marc was back. Marc, 


SEVEK FROZEX SAILORS. 


159 


whom I had seen three years before to meet with 
his end — whom I had mourned as dead. 

All this flashed across my mind in an instant. 
I rose to my knees, to my feet. I placed my hand 
on his arm. I looked into his eyes. His face 
was changed ; there was terrible emotion in it. 

“Marc,” I said, as quietly and with as much 
self-command as I could summon. 

He suffered my hand to remain on his shoulder, 
and continued to look in the direction the chaise 
had taken; toward M. Andre’s chateau. We 
stood thus a second or so. Then, turning upon 
me, he gasped, in low, choked, guttural accents of 
reproach and of the deepest despair, “ Ceeile ! Ce- 
cile!” 

What could I say? My conscience smote me 
heavily. I had told my best friend’s wife that her 
husband was dead! That I knew it — had seen 
him meet his death ! And upon my testimony she 
had acted. Marc and M. Andre — she was the 
wife of both ! It was terrible to witness the agony 
of the wretched man. It was not for me to break 
in upon that sacred passion of grief. 

“Ceeile!” he murmured, as the pistol dropped 
from his hand, and he sank fainting in my arms. 

I placed him gently on the rough grass by the 
roadside, raising his head, and loosening the collar 
of his shirt. 

For an hour he remained in a swoon, broken 
only by incoherent cries, that at rare intervals 
fashioned themselves into language. Then it was 
always “Ceeile!” 

I had a flask of brandy in my pocket. I got 
water from a little mountain spring close by. I 


160 


SEVERN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


bathed my poor comrade’s temples, and gave him a 
reviving draught of the spirit and water. I rubbed 
his cold hands, and beat them, to restore him to 
consciousness. 

At last he came to. How can I describe my joy 
when I found that he was, to all appearance, sane. 
For the attempt to shoot the unfortunate woman 
was the act of a madman. That attempt had hap- 
pily been* frustrated. What was now to be done? 
You will see, from my coolness and presence of 
mind in this danger, that I am able to act in an 
emergency. While Marc lay swooning on the 
grass by my side, 1 had had time to think. My 
course, my duty, were alike clear to me. I had 
been innocently — though I can never forgive myself 
— the cause of Cecile’s second marriage. I must 
not conceal this from Marc. My shoulders are 
broad. The truth must be told. I must tell it. 

“Just now, Marc,” I said, shaking him gently 
by the hand, “you were not Marc Debois. You 
were a madman intent on murder — the murder of 
her whom he loved best in the world!” 

“Name her not!” he burst out, throwing up his 
head and pressing his hands to his eyes; “faith- 
less — false wretch!” 

“Through me.” 

“ Through you?” 

“ Listen. A fortnight ago I was put ashore at 
Benevent, after three years’ existence, for I will 
not call it life, in that island, on whose shores I 
thought I saw you swallowed up by the sharks. 
Cecile ” 

He started back a few paces from me at the 
mention of her name. 


■SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


161 


I continued, however. 

“ Cecile came to me ; questioned me. I told her 
you were dead. It is my fault. You see, Marc, 
all the fault is mine. She had been faithful to her 
marriage vow, till certain news of your death 
reached her. Then she was free to marry. Alas ! 
that mine was the tongue that gave her the free- 
dom !” 

“Curse you, Pierre Crepin!” 

He was becoming terribly excited. I begged 
him to be calm. 

“I am a man, Marc. I can die like one. If 
you were reasonable, you would know that I have 
always been your good friend. You are unreason- 
able — — ” 

“I am unreasonable? I shall live only for ven- 
geance! First, I will kill you; then graybeard 
Andre; then. — then 'her!” 

“ And then, Marc?” 

“ Myself!” 

“You have your pistol. I have no weapon. 
You will not shoot me in cold blood? That is not 
Marc Debois, even now!” 

“Fetch one!” he shouted, imperatively. “No! 
Stay ! I cannot trust you! We will draw lots for 
this!” 

It was useless to re^eon, to expostulate, to ad- 
vise. , He was mad. It remained to fight. I com- 
mended the issue to Providence, and prayed that 
neither of us, unfit for death, miraculously saved 
and brought back to the sound of human voices, 
might fall. 

He pulled two bents from a tuft of the moun- 
tain grass growing on a hillock near us — one 

U 


162 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


shorter, one-longer, — and presented them to me for 
choice. 

“ You can trust me!’ 5 he said, with a wildly iron- 
ical smile. 

To hesitate was to be shot in cold blood. I felt 
this, and acted with resolution. 

“I can trust you, Marc.” 

“ Short fires first!” 

I pulled, and drew the short bent. 

He took a cap from a small cylindrical metal 
case he carried in his pocket, and fixed it on the 
nipple of his pistol. Then he handed the weapon 
to me. 

I took it from him, examined it with the great- 
est care — I see it now ; it was an old-fashioned fire- 
arm of Spanish make, — stood a pace only back 
from him, fixed my eye on his, with a sudden jerk 
flung the pistol fifty paces behind me, and throw- 
ing myself upon Marc, bore him to the ground, 
and held him there in a vice! 

Then began our struggle for life! 

At first, the advantage was mine. I was a-top. 
In strength we had always been pretty equally 
matched. Sometimes I had been able to throw 
Marc, sometimes he had thrown me. Now the 
contest was unequal. It is true I had the advan- 
tage of fighting for life, but the struggle was with 
the supernatural strength of a madman. I had 
dropped my stick before taking the pistol from the 
hand of Marc. In this tussle it would have been 
of no service to me. This was man to man. 

I pinned mad Marc to the ground, my hands on 
his arms, my knees on his chest. He writhed, 
and tore, and struggled under me. No word was 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


163 


spoken between us. The ad vantage, was with me. 
Thus we continued for what seemed an immense 
length of time — for what was, perhaps, a quarter 
of an hour. It was an incessant struggle with us 
both; with me to keep Marc Debois down — with 
Marc to master me. 

I felt my strength giving way. My joints were 
stiffening, my fingers becoming numb with the 
pressure. Besides this, I was in a profuse sweat, 
caused by the violent exertion, and partly by the 
alarm at what would happen if I should, in turn, 
be under the giant frame of Marc. It was to the 
accident of throwing him first, by my sudden and 
unexpected attack, that I owed the last fifteen min- 
utes of my life. If I spoke, I found it made him 
more violent in his efforts to master me. I thought 
the sound of my voice maddened him the more. 

My brain seemed clogged. At first, thought 
had followed thought with painful rapidity. My 
life had passed before me in panoramic procession. 
Now I had a novel feeling, such as I had never ex- 
perienced before. Was I — the thought was terri- 
ble ! — was I, under the horrible fascination of 
Marc’s eye — losing my reason? I made an effort 
to think. To rouse myself I multiplied fifteen by 
sixty. Nine hundred — nine hundred seconds of 
my life had passed in this fearful struggle with a 
madman! How many more seconds had I to live? 
How much longer could I hold my own? Not 
long! I was rapidly becoming exhausted. I 
commended myself to the Almighty. 

Hark! wheels — coming. 

Marc hears the sound, too. I am weak now. 
He makes one gigantic effort. I am overcome. 


164 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


His great fingers fasten with a desperate clutch 
upon my throat. He will tear out my gullet. 

I become insensible. 

When I come to myself I am seated on the box 
of the carriage which had conveyed Cecile and M. 
Andre to the chateau. It had passed us on its way 
back. 

We are near Benevent. 

It is three strong men’s work inside the chaise 
to restrain Marc and keep him from murdering 
them. 

We drive to the office of police. A little crowd 
follows us. I am able to give some formal evi- 
dence. Then I am taken home. The unfortunate 
man is placed under proper restraint. There is a 
great buzz of excitement in Benevent. 

Nobody recognizes Marc; he is so changed. I 
do not disclose his name. It is better to wait the 
course of events. 

After the fearful peril of the last hour, I am as- 
tonished to find myself alive. I am alive, and 
thankful. 

After the struggle in the defile I was unable to 
leave my bed for some days. I had been much 
tried both in mind and body ; but I received the 
kindest attention from the good friends around 
me. 

In these little places every trifle creates a 
mighty stir. All Benevent came to inquire after 
my health. I had been killed. No; well, then, 
nearly done to death by a murderous assassin es- 
caped from the galleys. The police knew him. 
It was the same man who five years before had 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


165 


attempted the life of the Emperor. He had a 
homicidal mania. There were a hundred different 
reports — none of them true. 

I was examined and re-examined; examined 
again, and cross-examined. You have formed the 
conclusion that I am a witness, if I choose, out of 
whom not much can be got. I baffled the Maire, 
the prefect, the police. I had been attacked by a 
man who carried a pistol, and I was rescued by 
some persons returning from M. Andre’s chateau 
in a chaise. What could be more simple? And 
these are the facts duly entered — wrapped in plenty 
of official verbiage — in police record. 

I had everybody’s sympathy. I had something 
better. Sympathy one can’t spend; francs one 
can. A subscription was raised for my benelit. 
I was compelled to accept the money — a thousand 
francs of it. The rest — some odd hundreds of 
francs and a bundle of warm clothing, intended for 
me by some Benevent valetudinarian, together with 
thirteen copies of religious books and two rosaries 
— I presented to the cure for distribution among 
the poor of his parish. 

But I had a weight on my mind even francs 
could not remove — Marc a\»d Cecile. 

She, poor woman, was Happy in being rich; in 
having fine dresses and gaiety; in being an old 
man’s idol. It is so with women. She was, I 
found, the donor of some of the religious books 
and of one of the two rosaries. Perhaps, then, at 
the chateau all was not happiness for the mistress. 
At times she still mourned for Marc. 

And Marc? 

After months of the greatest anxiety on my part, 


166 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


lest in his ravings he should betray himself, he 
was happily restored to reason. 

The doctor said it happened through his seeing 
me. 

He knew me as I sat in the room with him. 
His keepers said he had raved always of “ Cecile, 
Cecile!” What of it? It led to no suspicion of 
his identity with Marc Debois. Are there not 
hundreds of Ceciles? 

The wretched man’s memory was a blank. As I 
had done him a most terrible injury, I tried to re- 
pair — in some slight degree — to atone. 

He was lodged with me in my dear mother’s cot- 
tage. I used to lead him about like a child. I 
took him every day to the sea to see the shipping. 
This by degrees brought back his memory of his 
profession. 

At last all came back, save the scene in the de- 
file. He told me he had also been on a desolate 
island. Whether the same as mine, or an adjacent 
desert, I shall never know. A ship took him off, 
too, and landed him at Marseilles. He tramped it 
to Benevent, and arrived there in time to see Cecile 
just married to M. Andre. 

No wonder that his mind gave way. 

He implored my forgiveness. 

I implored his. 

He was silent, sullen. No one knew his name. 
I explained that he was an old shipmate. This 
hardly satisfied the people. At Benevent they 
love a mystery. 

Marc solved it for them. He disappeared, with- 
out saying good-by. I guessed that he had. gone 
to sea again. 


SEYEK FROZEN SAILORS. 


167 


He had said, the night before he left us, 
“Pierre, I will not wreck her life as she has 
wrecked mine. I will not seek her ; but God save 
her if she crosses my path in this life.” 

I was right; he had gone to sea. I got a letter 
a week after, with the Marseilles postmark on it. 

“ I am mate of the Lepante,” Marc said. 

Months had passed since their marriage— about 
a year. Cecile was a mother. She called upon 
me in her carriage one day. A nurse was in attend- 
ance upon her, carrying in her arms a little child. 
It was a girl, two months old. Cecile was proud ; 
but M. Andre chuckled incessantly, as old cocks 
will. I, with my terrible secret, could hardly 
bear to look at her. 

“ You are not friendly with me now, M. Crepin,” 
she said; “not as you used to be. I desire to 
keep all my old friends, and to make as many new 
ones as I can.” * 

I replied as well as I could; for I was thinking 
of Madame Debois, and not of Madame Andre, as 
she was now called. 

“I have come to ask ^a favor. Say. you will 
grant it me?” 

Like a Frenchman, I bowed complaisantly. 

Cecile went on, like a Frenchwoman, flatter- 
ingly, “ Pierre — for I will call you by the old 
name ; I like it best — I cannot be so stiff with an 
old friend as to keep calling you Monsieur Crepin ; 
but, if you will let me, I will call you Captain 
Crepin.” 

Again I bowed, slightly mystified. 

“ Captain Crepin, you are — you are brave. All 


168 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


Benevent knows it. You are an able and experi- 
enced seaman.” 

“ Madame is too good.” 

“Not a bit,” put in my mother, who would have 
heard me called angel with pleasure. 

“I love the sea. M. Andre does not; but he 
humors me in everything. I have made him buy 
a fine yacht — large, strong, swift, of English 
build. You have seen her. I have called her the 
Zephire . She lies in the harbor there, and wants 
a captain and a crew. You must be the captain, 
P-i-e-r-r-e!” 

You know how women wheedle — handsome, es- 
pecially ? 

“ This summer,” continued Cecile, “ we intend to 
cruise north. I long to see new countries. I am 
tired of life here. I long to skim over the waves 
and feel the cool breezes of northern seas.” 

“ Madame, I will consider. I must have time. 
You must give me time.” 

“You will not refuse me — nobody would. I 
shall feel safe only with you in command of our 
yacht. What answer shall I give M. Andre, who 
is all impatience to know?” 

“I will answer myself to M. Andre to-morrow.” 

When she was gone, my good mother pressed me 
to go — though she would a thousand times rather 
have kept me at home. But she knew that it is 
necessary for a man to be doing something. Ah, 
she is a woman, indeed ! 

“ This will be an easy berth, Pierre, ” she said. 
“ You will be at home with me here all the winters, 
with the Zepliire safely laid up in dock.” 

The next day I called upon M. Andre at his office. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


169 


“ I accept the command of your yacht, monsieur, ” 
I said. “ I shall always do my best for you, I 
hope.” 

The wages were liberal. I was to choose a crew 
of picked men — all old sailors. 

“We wish to sail in a week,” said M. Andre. 
“ Can you be ready by then ?” 

“ I can, ” was my answer. 

It was not the wheedling of Cecile ; it was not 
my mother’s urging me; it was not the beautiful 
yacht of M. Andre’s, nor his good wages, that 
made me decide to become captain of the ZepMre. 

It 'was because the Lepante had gone north. 

The Zepliire was as fine a craft as ever seaman 
handled. She was perfect, from keel to mast, 
from bow to stern. 

Those English know how to build ships. 

I had under me a crew of six picked men. We 
had, besides, a cook, a real chef \ for M. Andre 
was something of a gourmet , and would have the 
hand of an artist in his dishes, not the bungling 
of a scullion. 

Monsieur and Madame, with the little Cecile and 
their servants, came on board on Sunday morning, 
as the people were going to mass ; for we would 
sail on a seaman’s lucky day. We weighed an- 
chor. There was wind enough in the bay to fill 
our new white sails. All went without a hitch: 
we were off ! 

We had two months of the finest weather. Ce- 
cile’ s cheeks wore new color, and her black eyes 
sparkled with delight, as we sped along ten knots 
an hour. M. Andre was not dissatisfied. He 
saw Madame pleased. That is something for an 


170 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


elderly husband. He dined well, and he slept un- 
disturbed under an awning on deck, or in his 
cabin. But this could not last forever. We were 
three days from the last port we had touched at, in 
a northerly latitude, and I could see we were going 
to have some weather. The sunset was angry; 
black clouds rose ; the wind freshened into a stiff 
breeze. M. Andre called it an infernal gale. 

The sea became rough for a landsman ; and Mon- 
sieur not unnaturally felt squeamish. Dinner 
was served under difficulties that evening, and 
Monsieur could not taste even the soup. 

I took every precaution. Sails were reefed, and 
all was made taut. 

“Bad weather coming, sir!” said my mate. 

“Do you think so?” I answered, not wishing my 
own opinion to get to the ears of Cecile, as she 
would be frightened enough before morning. 

But I stepped aft, and told M. Andre. The 
brave merchant groaned, and wished he was in bed 
at Benevent. But wishing will not take one 
there. 

It was in the small hours. We men were all on 
deck. We were driving along at a fearful rate un- 
der bare poles. The waves were huge mountains. 
The storm raged with fury. The night was pitchy 
dark. Thunder and lightning did not serve to 
make things more agreeable. Not a seaman on 
board had ever seen such a night. It was neces- 
sary to lash oneself to the vessel to avoid being 
washed overboard. 

Of a sudden there was a terrific crash ! 

The women below shrieked and prayed. 


SEVEK EROZEK SAILORS. 


m 


The chef wanted to jump overboard. 

M. Andre cried, “We have struck on a rock! 
We are lost!” 

“Have courage!” I cried. “Fetch the women 
on deck. There is not an instant to be lost. The 
yacht is filling!” 

We had come into collision with a large vessel. 
I could see her lights. She had just cleared us. 
A flash of blue lightning showed me the name 
painted in Avhite letters on her stern. 

She was the Lepante^ of Marseilles. 

There was a lull in the storm. 

There remained one chance for life — to get on 
board the vessel. The yacht was filling fast, and 
in a few minutes would settle down. 

Except one or two tried sailors — old comrades of 
mine — everybody on board was paralyzed. 

It was for me to act — to choose for all. 

The choice was — Death or the Lepante. 

I chose the Lepante. 

A Frenchman stays at thb post of duty. 

As captain, I was responsible for the lives of all 
on board. I was, therefore, the last to leave the 
sinking Zephire. Cecile was hoisted up the side 
of the Lepante first. I heard a shriek. In the 
just-beginning twilight I could see two figures. 

A man’s and a woman’s. I knew them. 

Marc had raised Cecile on to the fieck of the Le- 
pjante , and had recognized her, and she him. 

The horrors of the storm, of the shipwreck, the 
prospect of death, were to me as nothing to this 
meeting. 

Marc and Cecile ! 


m 


SEVEH EROZEtf SAILORS. 


In a few seconds I was safe on the deck of the 
Lepantq. 

M. Andre, the crew, the spectators, were hor- 
ror struck. 

A man goes mad in an instant. Marc was again 
raving, as he had raved in the madhouse at Bene- 
vent. But the sight of Cecile had given purpose 
to his language. 

“ Vengeance — vengeance! Biend! The time 
has come ! Fate — fate has brought us together ! I 
could not escape you! I must kill you — kill you! 
We must be damned together! Hark at the roar 
of the waters! Hark at the wailing of the winds! 
Our shroud! — our dirge! — our requiem! that tells 
us of hell ! for I am a murderer, and you ” 

He had the strength of ten strong men. 

It took that number to hold him. 

The wretched Andre fell prone in a swoon. 

Cecile’ s women called on the Virgin and the 
saints. 

We all held Marc. 

Cecile turned upon me. 

“You told me he was dead,” she said. 

Then, to the captain of the Lepante — “ I am in- 
nocent — innocent — innocent !” 

But, in moments of supreme danger, men’s ears 
' are deaf to other people’s business. 

It was save himself who can. 

A leak had been sprung in the Lepante by the 
collision with our yacht. The pumps could not- 
hold their own with the waters. 

There was a panic on board. 

The storm had abated. The boats were got 
ready. All rushed to them. 



I MUST KILL YOU — KILL Y r OU ! ” 




















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SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


173 


“Place aux dames!” I cried; and, with the 
spasmodic strength of great crises, I held back the 
men, and got the women off first. Then men 
enough to take charge of the boat. 

M. Andre was in it; the first that was lowered. 
Another followed, filled with the crew of the Le- 
pante. Her captain was the first to leap into it. 

And Marc, freed from the arms that held him, 
dashed over the side into the foaming waters, to 
swim after Cecile. 

His vengeance was not in this world. 

As for me, I was left alone on the Lepante — 
with the rats. 

I am a sailor, and have a sailor’s prejudices, 
fears, hopes, beliefs. 

I saw the rats. They had not left the ship. I 
accepted the omen. I knew the Lepante was not 
doomed, if they stayed. 

To take to such a sea in an open boat seemed 
certain death. 

I preferred to stay with my friends, the rats. 

Rudderless, dismasted, we still floated. 

And drifted — drifted — drifted — 

Northward, into the ice. 

Into the ice-bound, ice-bearing sea that is round 
the North Pole. 

I know no more. 

“Gone again, sir!” I said, for just as the doctor 
made a lurch at the Frenchman, he melted away 
like the others. 

“ I never knew anything so provoking,” cried the 
doctor. “ But never mind, we must find another, 
and keep to my old plan — cut him out in a block, 


1?4 SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 

and take him home frozen, like a fly in amber. 
What a sensation! 7 ’ 

“ What! being friz ?” said Scudds. 

“No, my man. What a sensation it will make 
at the Eoyal Society, when I uncover my specimen, 
pointing to it like a huge fly in amber. It will be 
the greatest evening ever known.” 

He gave us no peace till we found another speci- 
men, which we did, and cut out by rule, and at 
last had it lying there by the tent, as clear as glass, 
and the doctor was delighted. 

“ Not a very handsome specimen, doctor,” I said, 
looking through the ice at a lean, long, ugly Yan- 
kee, lying there like a western mummy, with his 
eyes shut, and an ugly leer upon his face, just as 
if he heard what we said, and was laughing at us. 

“No, not handsome, Captain, but a wonderful 
specimen. We must give up the North Pole, and 
go back to-morrow. I wouldn’t lose that specimen 
for worlds.” 

I gave my shoulders a shrug like the Frenchman 
did, and said nothing, though I knew we could 
never get that block over the ice, even if it did 
not melt. 

Just then I saw the doctor examining the glass, 
and before long a most rapid thaw set in. The 
surface ice was covered with slushy snow, and for 
the first time for days we felt the damp cold horri- 
bly, huddling together round the lamp, and longing 
for the frost to set in once more. 

We had not stirred outside for twelve hours, a 
great part of which had been spent in sleep, when 
suddenly the doctor exclaimed — 

“ Why, it will be thawed out!” 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


175 


“What will?” I said. 

“My specimen!” he exclaimed. 

“ Here it is!” I said; and we all started, in spite 
of being used to such appearances; for just then 
the tent opening was dragged aside, and the tall 
Yankee, that we had left in the ice slab, came dis- 
contentedly in, and just giving us a nod, he stood 
there staring straight before him in a half-angry, 
spiteful way. 

I never could have believed that tobacco would 
have preserved its virtue so long, till I saw that 
tall, lean, muscular Yankee begin slowly to wag 
his jaw in a regular grind, grind, grind; when, 
evidently seeing their danger, our men backed 
away. For our friend began coolly enough to spit 
about him, forming a regtflar ring, within which 
no one ventured; and at last, taking up his posi- 
tion opposite the lamp, he would have put it out in 
about a couple of minutes, had not the doctor 
slewed him round, when, facing the wind, we all 
set to wondering at the small brown marbles that 
began to fall, and roll about on the ice, till we saw 
that it was freezing so hard again that the tobacco- 
juice congealed as it left his lips. 

“ I like grit — I do like a fellow as can show 
grit!” he kept on muttering in a discontented kind 
of way, as he took a piece of pine wood out of his 
pocket, and then, hoisting a boot like a canoe upon 
his knee, he sharpened his knife, and began to 
whittle. 

“ Where did you get that piece of wood?” said 
the doctor, then. 

The Yankee turned his head slowly, spat a 
brown hailstone on to the ice, and then said — 


176 


SEVEN" FROZEN" SAILORS. 


“ Whar did I get that thar piece o’ wood, stran- 
ger? Wall, I reckon that’s a bit o’ Pole — North 
Pole — as I took off with these here hands with the 
carpenter’s saw.” 

“I’ll take a piece of it,” said the doctor, and 
turning it over in his hands, “Ha, hum!” he 
muttered ; “ Pinus silvestris. ” Then aloud — “ But 
how did you get up here, my friend?” 

“Wall, I’ll tell you,” drawled the Yankee. 
“But I reckon thar’s yards on it; and when I be- 
gin, I don’t leave off till I’ve done, that I don’t, 
you bet — not if you’re friz. Won’t it do that I’m 
here?” 

“Well, no,” said the doctor; “we should like to 
know how you got here.” 

“So,” said the Yankee sailor, and, drawing his 
legs up under him, firing a couple of brown hail- 
stones off right and left, and whittling away at so 
much of the North Pole as the doctor had left him, 
he thus began. 




CHAPTER VIII. 


THE YANKEE SAILOR’S YARN. 

I warn’t never meant for no sailor, I warn’t; 
but I come of a great nation, and when a chap out 
our way says he’ll du a thing, he does it. I said 
I’d go to sea, and I went — and thar you are. I 
said I’d drop hunting, and take to mining, and 
thar I was; and that’s how it come about. 

You see, we was rather rough out our way, 
where Hez Lane and me went with our bit of tent 
and pickers, shooting-irons, and secli-like, meaning 
to make a pile of gold. We went to Washoe, and 
didn’t get on; then we went to St. Laramie, and 
didn’t get on there. Last, we went right up into 
the mountains, picking our way among the stones, 
for Hez sez, “Look here, old hoss, let’s get whar 
no one’s been afore. If we get whar the boys are 
at work already, they’ve took the cream, and we 
gets the skim milk. Let’s you and me get the 
cream, and let some o’ the others take the skim 
milk.” 

“ Good for you,” I says; and we tramped on day 
arter day, till we got right up in the heart o’ the 
mountains, where no one hadn’t been afore, and it 
was so still and quiet, as it made you quite deaf. 

It was a strange, wild sort of place, like as if one 
o’ them coons called giants had driven a wedge into 
13 177 


178 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


a mountain, and split it, making a place for a bit 
of a stream to run at the bottom, and lay bare the 
gold we wanted to find. 

“ This’ll do, Dab,” says Hez, as we put up our bit 
of a tent on a pleasant green shelf in the steep val- 
ley place. “This’ll do, Dab; thar’s yaller gold 
spangling them sands, and running in veins through 
them rocks, and yaller gold in pockets of the rock.” 

“Then, let’s call it Yaller Gulch,” I says. 

“Done, old hoss!” says Hez; and Yaller Gulch 
it is. 

We set to work next day washing in the bit of a 
stream, and shook hands on our luck. 

“This’ll do,” says Hez. “We shall make a pile 
here. No one won’t dream of hunting this out.” 

“Say, stranger !” says a voice, as made us both 
jump. “‘Do it wash well?” 

And if there warn’t a long, lean, ugly, yaller- 
looking chap looking down at us, as he stood hold- 
ing a mule by the bridle. 

Why, afore a week was over, so far from us keep- 
ing it snug, I reckon there was fifty people in Yaller 
Gulch, washing away, and making their piles. 
Afore another week as over some one had set up a 
store, and next day there was a gambling saloon. 
Keep it to ourselves ! Why, stranger, I reckon if 
there was a speck of gold anywheres within five 
hundred miles, our chaps ’d sniff it out like vul- 
tures, and be down upon it. 

It warn’t no use to grumble, and we kept what 
we thought to ourselves, working away, and mak- 
ing our ounces the best way we could. One day I 
proposed we should go up higher in the mountains; 
but Hez said he’d be darned if he’d move ; and next 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


179 


day, if he’d wanted me to go, I should have told 
him I’d be darned if I’d move; and all at once, 
from being red-hot chums, as would have done any- 
thing for one another, Hez and me got to be mor- 
tal enemies. 

Now, look here, stranger. Did you ever keep 
chickens? P’r’aps not; but if you ever do, just 
you notice this. You’ve got, say, a dozen young 
cocks pecking about, and as happy as can be — 
smart and lively, an’ innercent as chickens should 
be. Now, jist you go and drop a pretty young 
pullet in among ’em, and see if there won’t be a 
row. Why, afore night there’ll be combs bleed- 
ing, eyes knocked out, feathers torn and ragged — • 
a reg’lar pepper-box and bowie set-to, and all 
acause of that little smooth, brown pullet, that 
looks on so quiet and gentle as if wondering who 
made the row. 

Now, that’s what was the matter with us; for 
who should come into the Gulch one day, but an 
old storekeeping sort of fellow, with as pretty a 
daughter as ever stepped, and from that moment 
it was all over between Hez and me. 

He’d got a way with him, you see, as I hadn’t; 
and they always made him welkim at that thar 
store, when it was only “ How do you do?” and 
“ Good-morning,” to me. I don’t know what love 
is, strangers; but if Jael Burn had told me to go 
and cut one of my hands off to please her, I’d ha’ 
done it. f*d ha’ gone through fire and water for 
her, God bless her! and if she’d tied one of her 
long, yaller hairs round my neck, she might have 
led me about like a bar, rough as I am. 

But it wouldn’t do. I soon see which way the 


180 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


wind blew. She was the only woman in camp, 
and could have the pick, and she picked Hez. 

I was ’bout starin’ mad first time I met them 
two together — she a hanging on his arm, and look- 
ing up in his face, worshipping him like some of 
them women can worship a great, big, strong he; 
and as soon as they war got by I swore a big oath 
as Hez should never have her, and I plugged up 
my six-shooter, give my bowie a whetting, and lay 
wait for him coming back. 

It was a nice time that, as I sot there, seeing in 
fancy him kissin’ her sweet little face, and she 
hanging on him. If I was ’most mad afore, I was 
ten times worse now; and when I heer’d Hez corn- 
in’, I stood there on a shelf of rock, where the track 
came along, meaning to put half a dozen plugs in 
him, and then pitch him over into the Gulch. But 
I was that mad, that when he came up cheery and 
singing, I forgot all about my shooting-iron and 
bowie, and went at him like a bar, hugging and 
wrastling him, till we fell together close to the 
edge of the Gulch, and I had only to give him a 
shove, and down he’ ha’ gone kelch on the hard 
rocks ninety foot below. 

“Now, Hez,” I says; “how about your darling 
now? You’ll cut in afore a better man again, will 
yer?” 

“Yes, if I live!” he £ays, stout-like, so as I 
couldn’t help liking the grit he showed. “That’s 
right, ” he says ; “ pitch me over, and then go and 
tell little Jael what you’ve done. She’ll be fine 
and proud of yer then, Abinadab Scales!” 

He said that as I’d got him hanging over the 
rocks, and he looked me full in the face, full of 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


181 


grit, though he was helpless as a babby ; but I did- 
n’t see his face then, for what I see was the face of 
Jael, wild and passionate-like, asking me what I’d 
done with her love, and my heart swelled so that I 
gave a sob like a woman, as I swung Hez round 
into safety, and taking his place like, “ Shove me 
over,” I says, “and put me out of my misery.” 

Poor old Hez! I hated him like pyson; but he 
wasn’t that sort. ’Stead of sending me over, now 
he had the chance, he claps his hand on my 
shoulder, and he says, says he, “Dab, old man,” 
he says, “give it a name, and let’s go and have a 
drink on this. We can’t all find the big nuggets, 
old hoss; and if I’m in luck, don’t be hard on yer 
mate.” 

Then he held out his fist, but I couldn’t take it, 
but turning off, I ran hard down among the rocks 
till I dropped, bruised and bleeding, and didn’t go 
back to my tent that night. 

I got a bit wild arter that. Hez and Jael were 
spliced up, and I alius kep away. When I wanted 
an ounce or two of gold, I worked, and when I’d 
got it, I used to drink — drink, because I wanted to 
drown all recollection of the past. 

Hez used to come to me, but I warned him off. 
Last time he come across me, and tried to make 
friends, “Hez,” I says, “keep away — I’m desprit 
like^and I won’t say I shan’t plug yer!” 

Then Jael came, and she began to talk to me 
about forgiving him ; but it only made me more 
mad nor ever, and so I went and pitched at the 
lower end of the Gulch, and they lived at t’other. 

Times and times I’ve felt as if I’d go and plug 
Hez on the quiet, but I never did, though I got to 


182 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


hate him more and more, and never half so much as 
I did nigh two years arter, when I came upon him 
one day sudden with his wife Jael, looking pootier 
than ever, with a little white-haired squealer on 
her arm. An’ it ryled me above a bit, to see him 
so smiling and happy, and me turned into a blood- 
shot, drinking, raving savage, that half the Gulch 
was feared on, and t’other half daren’t face. 

I had been drinking hard — fiery Bourbon, you 
bet! — for about a week, when early one morning, 
as I lay in my ragged bit of a tent, I woke up, 
sudden-like, to a roarin’ noise like thunder; and 
then there came a whirl and a rush, and I was swim- 
min’ for life, half choked with the water that had 
carried me off. Now it was hitting my head, play- 
ful like, agen the hardest corners of the rock it could 
find in the Gulch ; then it was hitting me in the 
back, or pounding me in the front with trunks of 
trees swept down from the mountains, for some- 
thing had bust — a lake, or something high up — and 
in about a wink the hull settlement in Taller Gulch 
was swep’ away. 

“Wall,” I says, getting hold of a branch, and 
drawing myself out, “ some on ’em wanted a good 
wash, and this ’ll give it ’em;” for you see water 
had been skeerce lately, and what there was had 
all been used for cleaning the gold. 

I sot on a bit o’ rock, wringing that water out of 
my hair — leastwise, no : it was some one else like 
who sot there, chap ’s I knowed, you see; and there 
was the water rushing down thirty or forty foot 
deep, with everything swept before it — mules, and 
tents, and shanties, and stores, and dead bodies by 
the dozen, 


SEVEN" FROZEN SAILORS. 


183 


“Unlucky for them,” I says; and just then I 
hears a wild sorter shriek, and looking down, I see 
a chap half-swimming, half-swept along by the tor- 
rent, trying hard to get at a tree that stood t’other 
side. 

“Why, it’s you, is it, Hez?” I says to myself, 
as I looked at his wild eyes and strained face, on 
which the sun shone full. “You’re a gone coon, 
Hez, lad; so you may just as well fold yer arms, 
say amen, and go down like a man. How I could 
pot you now, lad, if I’d got a shooting-iron; put 
you out o’ yer misery like. You’ll drown, lad.” 

He made a dash, and tried for a branch hanging 
down, but missed it, and got swept against the 
rocks, where he shoved his arm between two big 
bits; but the water gave him a wrench, the bone 
went crack, and as I sat still there, I see him swept 
down lower and lower, till he clutched at a bush 
with his left hand, and hung on like grim death 
to a dead nigger. 

“ Sarve yer right,” I says coolly. “ Why should- 
n’t you die like the rest? If I’d had any go in me 
I should have plugged yer long ago.” 

“ Halloa !” I cried then, giving a start. “ It ain’t 
— ’tis — tarnation! it can’t be!” 

But it was. 

There on t’other side, not fifty yards lower down, 
on a bit of a shelf of earth, that kept crumbling 
away as the water washed it, was Jael, kneeling 
down with her young ’un; and, as I looked, some- 
thing seemed to give my heart a jigg, just as if 
some coon had pulled a string. 

“Well, he’s ’bout gone,” I says; “and they 
can’t hold out ’bout three minutes; then they’ll all 


184 


SEVEN - FROZEN" SAILORS. 


drown together, and she can take old Hez his last 
babby to nuss — cuss ’em! Pm safe enough. 
What’s it got to do with me? I shan’t move.” 

I took out my wet cake of ’bacca, and whittled 
off a bit, shoved it in my cheek, shut my knife 
with a click, and sot thar watchin’ of ’em — father, 
and mother, and bairn. 

“You’ve been too happy, you have,” I says out 
loud ; not as they could hear it, for the noise of the 
waters. “Now you’ll be sorry for other people. 
Drown, darnyer! stock, and lock, and barrel; I’m 
safe.” 

Just then, as I sot and chawed, telling myself as 
a chap would be mad to try and save his friends out 
of such a flood, let alone his enemies, darn me! if 
Jael didn’t put that there little squealer’s hands 
together, and hold them up as if she was making 
it say its prayers — a born fool! — when that thar 
string seemed to be pulled, inside me like, agin my 
heart; and — I couldn’t help it — I jumped up. 

“Say, Dab,” I says to myself, “don’t you be a 
fool. You hate that lot like pyson, you do. Don’t 
you go and drown yerself.” 

I was ’bout mad, you know, and couldn’t do as 
I liked, for, if I didn’t begin to rip off my things, 
wet and hanging to me. Cuss me! how they did 
stick! — but I cleared half on ’em off, and then, 
like a mad fool, I made a run and a jump, and was 
fighting hard with the water to get across to Hez’s 
wife and child. 

It was a bit of a fight. Down I went, and up I 
went, and the water twisted me like a leaf : but I 
got out of the roar and thunder, on to the bit of a 
shelf where Jael knelt; when, if the silly thing 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


185 


didn’t begin to hold up to me her child; and her 
lips, poor darling, said dumbly, “ Save it! save it!” 

In the midst of that rush and roar as I saw that 
poor gal, white, horrified, and with her yaller hair 
clinging round her, all my old love for her comes 
back, and I swore a big oath as I’d save her for 
myself, or die. 

I tore her dress into ribbons, for there warn’t a 
moment to lose, and I bound that bairn somehow 
on to my shoulders, she watching me the while; 
and then, with my heart beating madly, I caught 
her in my arms, she clinging tightly to me in her 
fear, and I stood up, thinking how I could get back, 
and making ready to leap. 

The flood didn’t wait for that, though. In a 
moment there was a quiver of the bank, and it 
went from beneath my feet, leaving me wrastling 
with the waters once more. 

I don’t knowhow I did it, only that, after a fight 
and being half smothered, I found myself crawling 
up the side of the Gulch, ever so low down, and 
dragging Jael into a safe place with her bairn. 

She fell down afore me, hugged my legs, and 
kissed my feet ; and then she started up and began 
staring up and down, ending by seeing, just above 
us, old Hez clinging there still, with his sound 
arm rammed into the bush, and his body swept 
out by the fierce stream. 

The next moment she had seized me by the arm, 
and was pynting at him, and she gave a wild kind 
of shriek. 

“He’s a gone coon, my gal,” I says, though she 
couldn’t hear me; and I was gloating over her 
beautiful white face and soft, clear neck, as I 


186 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


thought that now she was mine — all mine. I’d 
saved her out of the flood, and there was no Hez 
to stand in our way. 

“ Save him ! — save him !” she shrieked in my ear. 

What, Hez? Save Hez, to come between us 
once more? Save her husband — the man I hated, 
and would gladly see die? Oh, I couldn’t do it; 
and my looks showed it, she reading me like a book 
the while. No, he might drown— he was drowned 
— must be. No: just then he moved. But, non- 
sense! I wasn’t going to risk my life for his, and 
cut my own throat like, as to the futur’ . 

She went down on her knees to me though, point- 
ing again at where Hez still floated; and the old 
feeling of love for her was stronger on me than ever. 

“You’re asking me to die for you, Jael!” I 
shouted in her ear. 

“Save him — save Hez!” she shrieked. 

“Yes, save him!” I groaned to myself “Bring 
him back to the happiness that might be mine. 
But she loves him — she loves him; and I must.” 

I give one look at her — as I thought my last — * 
and I couldn’t help it. If she had asked me dumb- 
ly, as she did, to do something ten times as wild, 
I should have done it; and, with a run, I got well 
up above Hez afore I jumped in once more, to have 
the same fight with the waters till I was swept 
down to the bush where he was. 

I’d got my knife in my teeth to cut the bush 
away, and let him free; but as I was swept against 
it my weight tore it away, and Hez and I went 
down the stream together ; him so done up that he 
lay helpless on the water. 

Something seemed to tell me to finish him off. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


187 


A minute under water would have done it; but 
Jael’s face was before me, and at last I got to the 
other side, with her climbing along beside us; and 
if it hadn’t been for the hand she stretched down 
to me, I should never have crawled out with old 
Hez — I was that done. 

As I dropped down panting on the rock, Jael 
came to my side, leaned over me, and kissed me, and 
I turned away, for the next moment she was trying 
hard, and bringing her husband to, and I was be- 
ginning to feel once more that I had been a fool. 

I ain’t much more to tell, only that the flood 
went down ’most as quick as it had come up, and 
Hez got all right again with his broken arm, and 
did well. They wanted muchly to be friends ; but 
I kep’ away. I felt as I’d been a fool to save him, 
and I was kinder shamed like of it; so I took off 
to ’Frisco, where, after chumming about, I took to 
going voyages to Panama and back, and the sea 
seemed to suit me like, and there I stuck to it; and 
one day a ship comes into ’Frisco, where I was 
hanging ashore after a long drinking bout, and I 
heer’d as they wanted a man or two to fill up, be- 
cause a couple had deserted to the diggings. 

“Whar for?” I says to the officer. 

“ Discovering — up North,” he says. 

“That’ll do,” I says. “I’m yer man; only I 
don’t think as you’ll get gold if you finds it, 
’cause the water’ll all freeze when you wants to 
wash it.” 

“We want to find the North Pole, my lad,” he 
says. 

“And what’ll yer do with it when yer find it?” 
I says. 


188 


SEVEH EROZEtf SAILORS. 


“ The president wants it down in New York, to 
put in the big gardens, for the Great Bear to climb, 
if we can catch him, too.” 

Wal, seeing as it promised plenty of amusement, 
I stuck to my bond, and went with them. And 
a fine time we had of shooting, and sledging, and 
exploring. We found the North Pole, after being 
away from the ship a month. One chap swore it 
was only the mast of a friz-up ship, sticking out of 
the ice; but skipper said it was the North Pole, 
and I cut a bit off with the saw. That’s a bit as 
I’m whittling. 

We couldn’t get it out then, so we turned back 
to reach the ship, and get tackle to rig out and 
draw it; and while we was going back I turned so 
snoozy that, ’gainst orders, I lay down on the ice 
and went off bang to sleep. Ain’t seen anything 
of em, I ’spose? 

“Well, no,” said the doctor, winking at us, as 
the Yankee whittled away, “ I haven’t. You ex- 
pect to see them again?” 

“’Spect? Of course I do. They’ll come back 
to pull up the North Pole, and pick me up on the 
way. If they don’t I’ll show you where it lies.” 

“Lies; yes, where it lies,” said the doctor. 
“Well, whereabouts does it lie?” 

“ Heigh-ho — yaw — aw — aw — hum?” went the 
Yankee, with the most awful yawn I ever heard ; 
and then, as we looked, he seemed to go all at once 
into water — body, clothes, bones, and all — till 
there was nothing left before us but the knife and 
the bit of wood he had been whittling; and we 
shrank back, feeling all of a shiver, composed of 
equal parts of cold and fear. 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


189 


I thought the doctor would have had a fit, he 
was so disappointed, and he stamped about the ice 
until he grew quite blue in the face. 

“ The last chance !” he cried — “ the last chance !” 

He did not know how true a prophet he was ; for 
the next day, when we set to and searched for 
another specimen of suspended animation, not one 
could we find. We could not even hit upon one of 
the old elephants : nothing but ice — ice — ice every- 
where; and, now that the stimulus of making 
strange discoveries was over, the men began to 
grumble. 

“ I don’t like the state of affairs, doctor,” I said. 
“I fear there’s mutiny on the way.” 

“ Why?” he said. 

“ The men are growing so. discontented with 
their provisions; but hush, here they are.” 

The doctor’s nephew was standing by me as the 
crew came up, looking fierce and angry. 

“What’s the matter, my lads?” I said, when 
they all came close to me, and thrust their tongues 
in their cheeks. 

“Look here, skipper,” said Binny Scudds, who 
seemed to be leader, “we’ve had enough of this 
here!” 

“ My good man ” began the doctor. 

“'Now that’ll do, old skyantific!” cried Binny. 
“We’ve had enough of you. Who’s been doin’ 
nothin’ but waste good, wholesome sperrits, by 
stuffing black beadles, and dirty little fishes, and 
hinsecks in ’em, till there ain’t a drop fit to 
drink?” 

“ But, Scudds — ” I began. 

“ That’ll do !” he shouted fiercely ; and he threat- 


190 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


ened me with an ice pick. “We’ve had enough of 
it, I tell yer!” 

“ Look here, my man, ” said the doctor ; and his 
nephew got behind him. 

“ Yes, and look here,” said Scudds. “ You want 
to diskiver the North Pole, don’t yer?” 

“Well, you are very impertinent, my man,” said 
the doctor: “but, yes, I do.” 

“ Then you shall diskiver it along o’ the skipper, 
and young stowaway there.” 

“And what will you do?” said the doctor. 

“Oh,” said Scudds, “me, and Borstick, and my 
mates is agoin’ back. We’ve had enough of it, I 
tell yer.” 

“ But how are we to go on without you?” said 
the doctor. 

“I’ll show yer,” said Scudds. “Now mates!” 

To my intense horror, and in spite of my strug- 
gles, they seized us all three; and then, w T ith a lot 
of laughing and cheering, they brought up some 
pieces of rope, and three good-sized blocks of 
ice. 

“What are you going to do, scoundels?” I 
shrieked. 

“Well,” said Scudds, grinning, “my mates and 
me’s of opinion that the North Pole is down in the 
hole, and we’re agoin’ to send you three there to 
see.” 

“But it’s murder!” I cried. 

“It’s in the service of science,” said the doctor, 
blandly. “We shall make great discoveries. You 
won’t mind, Alfred?” he said, to his nephew. 

“ I should have been delighted, uncle, if I had 
only procured my skates,” said the young fellow. 


SEVEN - FROZEN SAILORS. 


191 


“These here’s better than skates,” said Scudds, 
grinning; and, to my extreme horror, they bound 
the young man to a block of ice, carried it to the 
edge of the crater, gave it a slight push, and away 
it went down, and down, rapidly gliding till it en- 
tered the dark mist toward the bottom. 

“ He’ll discover it first,” said the doctor, calmly. 

“But no one will know,” I said, bitterly. 

“We may get up again first,” he said, radiantly, 
as the men tied him on in his turn. 

“ Good luck to you, if you do, ” said Scudds, 
grinning, as he tied the last knot binding the stout 
old fellow to the second block of ice. 

“ Au revoir, Captain!” said the doctor, smiling; 
and then they pushed him on to the inclined way, 
and he glided off, waving his hand as he went, till 
he was nearly half-way down, and then the crew 
seized me. 

“Not without a struggle!” I said; and seizing 
an iron bar used for breaking ice, I laid about me, 
knocking one fellow after another down, and send- 
ing them gliding over the sides of the awful gulf, 
till only Scudds remained behind. 

“ Not yet, skipper!” he cried, avoiding my blow, 
and springing at my throat— “not yet;” and the 
next minute we were engaged in a desperate strug- 
gle, each trying with all his might to get the other 
to the edge of that awful slope, and hurl him down. 

Twice he had me on the brink and his savage 
look seemed to chill my blood; but with an effort I 
wrenched myself away, and prolonged the struggle, 
getting the better of him, till, filled with the same 
savage thoughts as he, I got him right to the edge. 

“ Not yet, skipper — not yet!” he exclaimed ; and 


192 


SEVEN' FROZEN - SAILORS. 


then, allowing himself to fall, he drew me, as it 
were, over his head, and the next moment I was 
hanging upon the icy slope, holding on only by one 
of his hands, and vainly trying to get a footing, 
for my feet kept gliding away. 

“You villain, you shall die with me!” I cried, 
clinging tenaciously to his hand to drag him down, 
too, but he looked down laughingly at me. 

“ I shall go back and say I found the North Pole 
all by myself!” he cried, with a hideous grin; and 
then, apparently without an effort, he shook me off, 
and I began to glide down, down, down, into the 
horrible black mist below me! 

As I glided over the ice, which was wonderfully 
smooth, my rate of progress grew each moment 
more rapid, till it was like lightning in its speed. 
I fancied I heard Scudd’s mocking laugh ; but it 
was far distant, and now I was nearing the mist 
each moment, and instead of cold I could feel a 
strange burning sensation in my head. 

“What of those gone before?” I asked myself, 
as I slid on at lightning speed. “Have they been 
dashed to pieces, or have they plunged into some 
horrible abyss? Yes, that must be it,” I thought, 
for now I was through the mist, and speeding on 
to what looked like the hole of the great funnel, 
down which I was hurried. 

The sensation was not unpleasant, but for the 
heat, and, moved now by curiosity, I ' struggled 
into a sitting position ; then, feet first, I skimmed 
on, and on, and on, till right before me there seemed 
to be an edge, over which I slid into intense dark- 
ness; ever going on down, down, down, with the 
noise of wind rushing by me as I fell, till my head 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


193 


spun round; then there was a strange sensation of 
giddy drowsiness ; and, lastly, all was blank. 


“Yes, he’ll do now,” said a familiar voice. 
“He’s getting on. Head beautifully cool.” 

“ Eh?” I said, staring at the speaker. 

“ Well, skipper, that was a narrow touch for you, 
I thought once you were gone.” 

“So did I,” was my reply; “but how did you 
and Bostock get out?” 

“Wandering a little still,” said the doctor, in a 
whisper to Bostock. “ Get out?” he said aloud. 
“Oh, easily enough.” 

“But, but, ” I said, faintly, holding my hand to 
my head — “that horrible crater!” 

“Lie still, my dear captain,” lie said, “and don’t 
Worry. You’ll be stronger in a day or two.” 

“But tell me!” I said, appealingly. 

“Well, there’s little to tell,” he said, smiling. 
“ Only that you pitched head first twenty feet down 
the slope of that iceberg three weeks ago, and you’ve 
been in a raging fever ever since.” 

“ Then the overturning of the iceberg — the dive 
of the steamer — the seven frozen sailors — the 
crater?” 

“My dear fellow,” he said, gently, “you’ve been 
delirious, and your head evidently is not quite right 
yet. There, drink that.” 

I took what he gave me, and sank into a deep 
sleep, from which I awoke much refreshed, and by 
degrees I learned that I had slipped while we were 
on the beautiful iceberg, and had a very narrow 
escape of my life; that, far from walking back to 
13 


194 


SEVEN FROZEN SAILORS. 


the steamer, and sitting on the deck to hear a scrap- 
ing noise, 1 had been carried carefully on board by 
Bostock and Scudds. Imagination did the rest.” 

I need not continue our adventures in our real 
voyage, for they were very uneventful. The doc- 
tor got some nice specimens and thoroughly enjoyed 
his trip; but we were stopped on all sides by the 
ice, and at last had to return, loaded with oil and 
preserved natural history matters, after what the 
doctor called the pleasantest trip he had ever had. 

But, all the same, it would have been very in- 
teresting if the Seven Frozen Sailors had really 
been thawed out to give us forth their yarns— of 
course always excepting the rush down into the 
misty crater. However, here are their stories, 
told by seven pens, and may they make pleasant 
many a Fireside. 




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